THE THIRD PERIOD 



OR 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED 



BY C. J. OLIVER 




NEW YORK 
PRINTED BY HUNT & EATON 
150 Fifth Avenue 
1S94 



Copyright, iSgo by 
C. J, OLIVEK, 



Composition, electrotypfng, printing, and binding by 
HUNT & EATON, 
150 Fiftli Avenue, New York, 



DEDICATION. 



O the city of Savannah I dedicate this little 



X volume, which is the ultimate outgrowth of 
aspirations nurtured years ago under her genial 
skies. It was not the ministry of my youth, but 
the youth of my ministry, that she nurtured twenty- 
five years ago. At that time, where the shipping 
lay along her busy wharves, I labored earnestly 
with the open-handed men who go down into the 
sea in great ships, and on the Sabbath days in the 
old Penfield Mariners* Church amused good Captain 
Dickinson with nautical terms that did not sit well 
upon a landsman's lips. In old Trinity Methodist 
Episcopal Church the too indulgent congregation 
buoyed me with their kind and earnest sympathy, 
while saintly Robert Corley sat by me, and Robert 
Walker and Emmanuel Heidt, and the princely 
Godfrey and ever earnest Mclntyre looked up from 
their wonted places, and the hospitable home of 
Alexander M. Winn waited to give me welcome. 

Where the Independent Presbyterian Church, so 
gray and grave and grand, -has since then spread 
her ashes on the platform of her memories, and 
risen again, phenix-like, on the wings of her people's 
faith, where she then lifted her towering head and 
pointed heavenward, the lamented Axon, who has 
but as yesterday left his slippers on the threshold of 




4 



DEDICATION. 



eternity, loved to place me before him and push 
me to his pulpit's dizzy height. In the transverse 
section of dear Brother Porter's then unfinished 
church the spirit of the congregation rose to meet 
me and fanned my inspiration with the fervor of its 
interest. 

All this, truth bids me say, was reproduced in 
every graceful line of social life. As fresh as yes- 
terday is the superb bow of the courtly Habersham 
or the deferential salutation of the venerable Law. 
Master minds looked out of all these eyes, and I 
felt the flattering unction flowing from companion- 
ship where all the rest were great. 

Tis past, all past! O'er most of these the 
cypress weaves the shadow of a city's widow- 
hood. It is fitting I should dedicate to them, their 
memories, their wives, their homes, the mantles 
on their graves, this treatise on " the word " that 
breathes resurgam; that borrows inspiration from 
the better land beyond, that brings the " New 
Jerusalem," with her golden avenues, to the u city 
of the dead." 

There is a city by the broad savannahs bordering 
life's river, in the land of the unclouded sun, where 
I shall see them all again, congratulate the lamented 
Heidt before Immanuel's face, and grasp the hand 
of Ouantock quaint in heaven. 

Till then I cherish in my heart of hearts these 
pictures of the past. An ever-lingering presence, 
like the cadence of the music that is gone, is the 
city of my memories to me. More than twenty 
years have passed since then ; but twenty more 
would not suffice to dim my grateful recollections 



DEDICATION. 



5 



of those happy days. She has ever been the ambi- 
tion of the soldier and the statesman, of the poet 
and the author ; but while I hang my humble immor- 
telles upon the altars of her dead I would ask her 
to permit the inscription of a single leaf to my liv- 
ing memories of the queenly 44 City by the Sea." 

The Author. 



PREFACE. 



I DO assuredly know that I am writing for the 
ages. He who sailed straight across the sea 
guided by an inference, and gave to human prog- 
ress another continent, was not more surely guided 
by the all-seeing Eye and overruling Hand than I. 

He who digs the exquisite treasure of the past 
from under mediaeval rubbish but gives back to the 
world its own; yet, nevertheless, known or unknown, 
he is the world's benefactor till the end of time. 
But he who reaches forth into the future and holds 
the lamp that guides our feet into our heritage is 
thrice blest above the lot of other men : above the 
past — they knew it not ; above the present — for man 
sees only through his eyes ; blest in the future, for 
men will rise and call him blessed when they realize 
the fulfillment of his promises in the fruition of 
their hopes. 

Yes, I am writing for the ages; yet I know r , alas! 
how much of opposition and contempt of truth, 
born of our depravity, is mingled with the better 
thoughts of well-intentioned men. The would-be 
wise men of one generation are but patent fools to the 
generation that comes after them, the blot of history, 
the laughing-stock of all. For this reason none that 
have written for immortality have enjoyed the com- 
mendation of their contemporaries. Nevertheless, 



8 



PREFACE. 



I have written these plain truths for plain people. 
May the Master sanctify them to the enlargement of 
many a life, to the higher aspiration of many a 
spirit, and to the divine expansion of many a soul 
that shall more intelligently walk with God ! 

To the critic I can only say, Do your worst, and let 
the best come of it. You have your office and rela- 
tion to the economy of things. In the country 
where I live we have a vulture known as the turkey 
buzzard ; his taste is exclusively for carrion ; therefore 
he picks the eyes out of the young and weakly 
lambs that he may reduce them to the level of his 
taste, and in so doing unwittingly subserves that 
great and easily discerned principle in the divine 
economy, " the survival of the fittest." Esther said, 
and so can I, " If I perish, I perish/' 

'But whether you be critical, or infidel, or preju- 
diced, or dull, I pray you, reader, read it, and as 
you read reflect and inwardly digest and muse and 
burn. Verbally it is but the product of my evening 
hours, not infrequently wrested from labor, or re- 
fused to sleep. Nevertheless, the truth of God is in 
it, the wisdom that cometh from above. 

Ah ! my fellow-man, if you would think more of 
these eternal things and less of stocks and bonds, 
of rents and rates of interest, with how much more 
of grandeur and pride of being it might replace the 
treadmill drudgery of your daily life ! 

The Author. 



CONTENTS. 



1. Pictures of the Apocalypse. 

2. Treatises on Subjects Involved. 

PAGE 



Introductory Treatise: The Third Period. II 

PlTCURE I 39 

Trea tise : Ch r istia n Ps) 'c h o log) > 43 

Picture II 107 

Treatise: The Coming of the Lord ill 

Picture III 122 

Treatise: The Uses of Adversity 124 

Picture IV 159 

Treatise : Essay on Heaven 163 

Picture V 1S2 

Treatise : The Millennium 190 

Picture VI 206 

Treatise : The History of Satan 211 

Picture VII 222 

Treatise : The Resurrection 229 

Picture VIII 262 

Treatise : The Holy Ghost 267 

Picture IX 287 

Treatise : Armageddon 297 

Picture X 327 

Treatise : Prophetic Praise 334 

Picture XI 347 

Treatise : The Judgment 362 

Picture XII 394 

Triple Treatise: The Tree, The Water, The Book 408 



THE THIRD PERIOD; 



OR, 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



HE keen desire which intelligent men feel to 



X look into the future, not only of their own 
personal immortality, but of the world to which they 
belong, with which they are identified, of which 
each one is an integral part, is not reprehensible 
but praiseworthy. In fact, it is divine. The base 
line of his triangular nature finds its one extremity 
in depravity with Satan, the other in degeneracy 
with the beast. But the apex of that triangle, 
which is its highest point, from which the perpen- 
dicular line descends through his rectitude, and 
capacitude, and beatitude, points to God — indeed, is 
with God. Let none, therefore, reflect upon man's 
desire to know or God's willingness to reveal. The 
word of God, from Genesis to the Apocalypse, is all 
a revelation, not intended to mystify man but to 
enlighten him. Nothing seems more unaccountable 
to the writer than this patent fact, that while men 
admit this proposition measurably with regard to 
most of the Scriptures, from Genesis to Jude, they 



THE THIRD PERIOD. 




12 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



do not suspect, realize, or admit, as the case may be, 
that Revelation was ever intended to reveal any- 
thing. 

With modest confidence in the great truths which 
we bring and lay before our fellow-men, though with 
none in ourselves, do we now offer them the key 
which unlocks the mystery of the seven-sealed book, 
admits us into the intelligent companionship of the 
angels and into the appreciation of God's eternal 
purposes, promulged and yet to be fulfilled. We 
begin by explaining what we mean by a third 
period. From the creation and fall of man to the 
death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is one very 
marked period in the religious history of the world. 
A second is now progressing, which a large portion 
of the world admits will extend to the second com- 
ing of Christ. We take the position that it will be 
succeeded by a third period, extending from Christ's 
second to his third coming, and corresponding in 
duration with the one through which we are now 
passing. We call the first the " ante-resurrection," as 
in it there was absolutely no resurrection, and we 
call the second or present " the resurrection period," 
because it produced the " first fruits of the resur- 
rection," and because we live in " hope of the 
resurrection ;" we call the still future period the 
"apocalyptic," because the Apocalypse reveals 
most of what we know about it, and because the 
prophecies of the book are mainly confined to that 
period. 

The argument begins with I Cor. xv, 24-28: 
" Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered 
up the kingdom to God, even the Father ; when he 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



13 



shall have put down all rule, and all authority 
and power. For he must reign, till he hath put all 
enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall 
be destroyed is death. For he hath put all things 
under his feet. But when he saith, All things are 
put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, 
which did put all things under him. And when all 
things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the 
Son also himself be subject unto him that put all 
things under him, that God may be all in all." The 
first general predicate in these verses is that there 
is a period succeeding the resurrection of Jesus 
Christ, which is to close with the subjection of all 
things, save God the Father, to his sway (verse 27). 
It is not said whether that period will be long or 
short, but certain conditions of that period are 
described. " He must reign ; " if to the last, then 
from the first. This is, then, a regnant period ; but 
there are counter reigns, with " rules," " authority," 
and " power." Can there be any doubt as to that being 
the " God of this world," " the prince of the powers 
of the air ? ' ' Another condition : there are a plural- 
ity of enemies, not men, but things, the last of 
which to be destroyed is death. See Rev. xx, 14. 
The idea of the succession of events is very clearly 
conveyed : the destruction of many enemies suc- 
cessively and of death finally, the putting down of all 
" rulers," and of all " authority," and of all " powder ; " 
the putting of each enemy under Christ's feet by God, 
till all shall have been put there ; the ultimate ful- 
fillment of the prophecy, " To him shall every knee 
bow, and every tongue confess" (Phil, ii, 10, 11). 
Again, the excepting of God (verse 27) gives a 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



clew to the nature of the powers and enemies. 
They are comparable to Christ, who subdues, and to 
God, who is not to be subdued. They are not the 
oppositions of men, nor the difficulties of matter ; 
they are personalities, as God and Christ are per- 
sonalities. Who can escape the conviction that 
these are the " thrones," " dominions," 44 principali- 
ties," and " powers " which were Christ's first creation 
(see Col. i, 16), and that they reappeared as the 
" first beast," the " second beast," the " false proph- 
et," and the u red dragon," in the vivid pictures of 
the Apocalypse. But it will be objected that death, 
which is here personified, is an abstraction. True ; 
but remember that it is the personification of a 
power exercised by him who was a murderer from 
the beginning, which ceases only when he who ex- 
ercises that power is overcome, for Satan holds to 
the last the power of death. As to the length of 
time which constitutes this distinct period, we pre- 
sent the argument within an argument on this wise : 
I. Argument of the a?itecedent parallel. The inhab- 
itants of the world, from the creation and the fall to 
the coming of Christ, were objects of great solici- 
tude on God's part, and the subjects of great clem- 
ency and forbearance, purchased for them, as we 
understand it, by the Lord Jesus Christ. They 
were little fitted to receive light, and had little. 
They had fallen in their federal head, and were 
involved in the sin of their progenitor. The work 
of their reinstatement was progressing slowly, but 
we suppose as rapidly as the circumstances of the 
case admitted — to think otherwise would be to reflect 
on God, something which the writer of this book is 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



15 



not prepared to do — when this time was divided, and 
may have been doubled, by the absolute failure of 
the first experiment. This resulted in an oblitera- 
tive deluge, and changes, hibernal and meteoric, in 
the condition of the earth, in addition to the curse 
pronounced upon it when our first parents fell. 
The experiment was renewed with a family of eight 
fallen but virtuous people, against two untried and 
unfallen people in the first case. But the point is 
that four thousand years were devoted to this dual 
experiment ; a Scripture written of one part of it 
will practically cover the whole, namely, " When 
once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of 
Noah," four thousand years was the apportionment 
in the scale of Divinity. And when, according to 
the eternal purpose, " God sent his Son in the like- 
ness of sinful flesh," the world entered upon a 
brighter dispensation, one that we are all willing to 
magnify because we live in it ; we call it meridian 
now, though if the trumps of doom were suddenly 
to sound ninety-nine out of every one hundred 
would be found shivering on the brink of fate. But 
it has taken nearly nineteen centuries to bring the 
world to its present religious status. Through the 
darkness of heathenism and ingratiated superstition ; 
through the night of persecution, in the baleful 
light of martydom ; through the " Lo here " and 
" Lo there " of sectarian bigotry ; through the rise 
and fall of successive denominations, with their 
more or less guarded claims of infallibility, God 
has patiently waited, manifesting himself to the 
world through Jesus Christ, and slowly reconciling 
the world to himself. 



i6 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



The centuries are passing away; our poor pen is 
opening up truths buried from the ages ; the clock 
of the epoch marks 1894, and is almost ready to 
strike another year, and the declaration which Christ 
makes by implication still stares us in the face: 
" Nevertheless, when the Son of man cometh, shall 
he find faith on the earth?" But the question is, 
How much longer is this era likely to last? Analo- 
gies point with no certainty. The dual period that 
preceded it was four thousand years, but there is no 
duality about this. This period might be shorter, 
as it is more intense. It might be more extended 
in proportion to the magnitude of the thing in- 
volved. Are you willing to guage it by half of the 
past duality, and do you believe that it will end in 
the year 2000, or are you willing to believe, with the 
writer, that this single period will require two thou- 
sand five hundred years for its accomplishment? 
If so, we will find a comparison here which will 
apply in any case. 

You now have two antecedent lines for the third 
parallel. We are talking to believers. You believe 
that Satan set himself to work as soon as our first 
parents were placed on this earth to mar the divine 
plan ; that they fell into the snare, and that then 
the redemptory struggle began ; that there was no 
prompt punishment of the prime offender beyond 
his typical degradation, no incarceration, no anni- 
hilation. The three successive experiments, the 
removal of Adam from Eden, the salvation of Noah 
from the flood, the separation of Abraham from his 
country, were but so many endeavors on the part 
of divinity to bring man, by appealing to and aiding 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



17 



his own volition, from under the power of Satan, the 
price of his redemption having been virtually paid. 
And you further believe that the original creation, 
together with these three successive experiments, 
under the redemptory plan largely failed on account 
of the great power of Satan, so that it came to be 
said by inspiration, " The whole world lieth in the 
wicked one;" and while we have faith in the phi- 
losophy of the plan of salvation, and believe that all 
this time progress was being made, you, neverthe- 
less, are obliged to admit that it required four thou- 
sand years for this part of its development. 

With the second period, which is the present 
time, we will deal briefly, pausing only to ask 
if it would greatly astonish you if an angel were to 
assure us that this would also require four thou- 
sand years for its completion. But we resume. 

In the furtherance of the plan and the fulfillment 
of prophecy Jesus came, and actually and philo- 
sophically, if we could only understand it, paid the 
penalty of our transgressions and brought immor- 
tality to light. And for what purpose do the Scrip- 
tures say he came into the world and inaugurated a 
new epoch ? " For this purpose the Son of God 
was manifested, that he might destroy the works 
of the devil." The agency of the Holy Ghost is 
introduced in such new and peculiar functions as to 
constitute this the era of the Holy Ghost. It be- 
gun with an overcoming of Satan as the tempter ; 
was early marked by the breaking of his power over 
the grave, and thereby that power remains broken, 
and cannot, at any time hereafter, prevent the res- 
urrection of the dead. Nevertheless, nineteen 
2 



i8 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



hundred years are drawing to a close, and the end is 
not yet. If the broad-minded man, without skepti- 
cism on the one hand, and fanaticism on the other, 
looks over the field, what indication is there that it 
is even approaching ? 

Religion is at present the only thing standing 
still in the world. Every other department of 
human life exhibits marvelous activity. In these 
Southern States eight million of one branch of the 
Hamitic race are being prepared for their future 
home and status ; while in the Congo valley provi- 
dences startling to look at and think about are 
preparing their future home for them. The un- 
blessed races of men glide gently and almost imper- 
ceptibly down the inevitable decline toward extinc- 
tion ; while the world's inheritors are marching at 
doublequick toward their very outposts. It isevident 
that before men are ready for the drying up of the 
rivers and the shrinkage of the seas their railroads 
will have belted, in one way or another, the entire 
globe, and the men of the western hemisphere will 
freely converse with those of the eastern world. 

It is true the whole earth is like a mighty work- 
shop in which the labors are active, and in some 
sense as direct as those of an arsenal when war has 
been declared ; but we are neither approaching 
Manasses nor Armageddon, and it is just as silly to 
parade certain self-evident and undeniable indica- 
tions that the day of the Lord is at hand as it was 
seventeen or eighteen hundred years ago, and the 
would-be wise reader need not cite the writer to the 
twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew ; he has read it, 
and is watching. 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



19 



But we are measurably digressing. You are will- 
ing to admit that this period will occupy two thou- 
sand years (?). Will you not strain a point for the 
sake of the argument, and agree with the writer 
that it will occupy twenty-five hundred years? 
Well, then, we will resume the argument. If this 
period has occupied twenty or twenty-five hundred 
years, and the devil still rampant as a roaring lion, 
still the adversary of the brethren and the active 
enemy of all good, not one power as yet under the 
Saviour's feet, by all parallelism will not the succeed- 
ing one in which so much is to be accomplished oc- 
cupy at least the minimum of the past periods, or 
from two thousand to twenty-five hundred years? 

2. Argument of the pragressiveness of the plan. 
We present this in a double light: first, that of in- 
ductive inference. The first three experiments to 
reclaim man, between Adam and Christ, we will not 
particularize, but deal with the first general period 
from Adam to Christ as essentially one dispensation. 
That it was characterized by types, symbols, and 
prophecies grew out of the oneness of the plan and 
the progressiveness of its development. It was a 
dispensation of temporal rewards and present pun- 
ishments, and the faith of the period was practically 
confined to these two things. The success of this 
protracted experiment was limited, its failure large ; 
it was virtually closed with these words : " If they 
hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they 
be persuaded though one rose from the dead." 

Yet One did rise from the dead in the progressive- 
ness of the plan, and Jesus Christ in his humanity 
brought life and immortality to light through the 



20 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



resurrection. The veil of the temple, representing 
the whole barrier of sacrificial and symbolic worship, 
was rent in twain. This meant not only the end 
of sacrifice and the death of sacerdotalism, but the 
advancement of the race into the possibility and 
responsibility of conscious spiritual relations with 
God so that they might be his heirs in the things 
which Jesus had brought to light, and intelligent 
colaborers with him in the carrying out of his plans. 
He also drew aside the opaque curtain between the 
two worlds and changed the provinces of faith so 
that men could understand " that the things which 
are seen are temporal, but the things which are not 
seen are eternal." He fixed the ultimation of their 
faith in " everlasting life," and declared that he 
was the " resurrection and the life; " declared that 
his followers could not die because they were the 
children of the resurrection, and promised that after 
he had prepared a place for them he would come 
again and take them to himself, that where he was 
they might be also. What a change in the status 
of man in his second relation to God under the 
plan ! Read intelligently Heb. xii, 22-24. 

So much for the first and second portions of the 
plan, plain enough because they are past ; but how 
shortsighted we are that we cannot see that there 
is still another of yet higher grade ! Why should 
Jesus return " in like manner" if there is nothing 
for him to do when he gets here? Why should 
God bring with him those that are his if there is 
nothing for them to do when they get here ? We 
will be pointed. With your appreciation of heaven, 
what do you suppose they come back for? When 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



2 I 



will he present his Church unto himself a bride 
without spot or wrinkle? Pause and think. Does 
that seem like your conception of heaven ? What 
about the millennium ? 

The whole animal and vegetable world, and con- 
sequently the material world, is changed prepara- 
tory to that period, and it lasts a thousand years, 
half the time that has already elapsed under the 
present dispensation. Where does the millennium 
come in ? " He must reign till he puts all enemies 
under his feet." That sounds like war, but the 
millennium is a time of peace ; what about that? 
Where does the restoration and conversion of the 
Jews come in ? Is prophetic Scripture a myth ? 
If this period is to close soon and summarily will 
they be prepared to say at its close, " Blessed is he 
that cometh in the name of the Lord?" When 
and where will the disciples sit with him on twelve 
thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel ? 
Finally, if man walked with God in the twilight 
dispensation, shall he not walk with him in the 
noontide of his glory, when he shall have become 
like him? (When shall we drink the juice of the 
grape fresh with him in his Father's kingdom ?) 
There is but one answer to these questions. These 
things all appertain to the allotment of the third 
period — an extended period — wherein the millen- 
nium is but a truce to its war, an experimental epi- 
sode in its history. 

3. The argument of the prophecies of the New Tes- 
tament. This again we divide, and while the subdi- 
visions may sometimes overlap and interblend, we 
will endeavor to keep them as distinct as possible. 



22 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



First division : The state of the resurrected as a 
condition. We first quote the words of Jesus to 
the Sadducees and to the disciples, touching their 
future reward. These will be found in the follow- 
ing order, and in one or another of them each word 
or phrase under quotation marks will be found : 
Matt, xxii, 29-31 ; Mark xii, 23-26; Luke xx, 
33-36; Matt, xix, 28-30; Mark x, 29, 30; Luke 
xviii, 29, 30. 

" Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures/' which 
reveal the conditions of that future state, " nor the 
power of God " to elevate our being without impair- 
ing our identity. 

"That world," the world to come, compared 
with 2 Peter iii, 13, and contrasted with this time, 
or "this present time," is evidently the new earth 
encompassed with new heavens, which, after the 
dissolution of this earth by fire in the " day of 
God/' shall be the eternal dwelling place of the 
righteous, w r ho enter then into their inheritance of 
eternal life, while, by reversed contrast, " this pres- 
ent time " is the whole comprehensive period of 
man's probation, from the fall of Adam to the ulti- 
mate " day of God." 

It will help us much in the study of God's word 
to think from what an elevated, all-comprehending 
standpoint Jesus viewed the things of which he 
spoke. We then are endeavoring to attain such a 
standpoint through revelation, also to contrast " this 
present time," from six to ten thousand years, with 
the " world to come," which is to last from the day 
of its material reconstruction, forever. And for a 
better understanding of the whole subject take into 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 23 



consideration also the contemporaneous existence 
of heaven, the home of the angels. 

When Jesus would prove to a divine demonstra- 
tion the fact absolute of the resurrection he puts 
Abraham (a representative of the early dead) before 
the Jews as a living man. He does not say where, 
but we have elsewhere abundant evidence that he 
(type of the righteous dead) is in heaven. Then 
when Jesus comes he, and all that are Christ's, will 
not go from the resurrection to heaven, but will 
come from heaven to the resurrection. 

Here Paul takes up the history and gives us two 
points : first, they will rise from their graves, or, if 
living, from the surface of the earth, to " meet the 
Lord in the air ; " secondly, " and so " (either for 
that reason or in that condition) " shall we ever be 
with the Lord ; " and if you will reflect, dear reader, 
it will be very difficult from any Scripture outside 
of the Apocalypse to prove that they ever again 
go outside of our atmosphere. So we come by de- 
grees to treat of their condition, intermediate be- 
tween the resurrection and the " day of God." We 
turn now to Matt, xix, 28, 29, and there we find 
that the period in which " the Son of God shall sit 
on the throne of his glory," and the twelve "also 
shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve 
tribes of Israel, " and in which every one that hath 
forsaken houses, or relatives, or lands, for his 
name's sake, shall receive a hundredfold, he calls 
the " regeneration." Now, all will agree, we take it, 
that Jesus will not sit on the throne of his glory 
before the resurrection, and equally that the mate- 
rial regeneration of the earth by fire, as described by 



2 4 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



Peter, will not take long and does not agree with 
the circumstances of this case, and we are therefore 
shut up to our own conclusions, namely, that this 
period of reigning and holding property, be it long 
or short, lies between the resurrection and the de- 
struction of the world by fire. Now we turn to 
Matt, xxii, 30, and hear him say, ' k For in the resur- 
rection they neither marry, nor are given in mar- 
riage, but are as the angels of God in heaven." 
Here it is evident that the resurrection is synony- 
mous with the regeneration, and means a state or 
condition of things, for the marrying does not con- 
vey the idea of the simultaneous marriage of a large 
number, but of one marrying here and another 
there, one now and another then ; and further, the 
giving in marriage, as his hearers understood it, 
was a contract or espousal, perhaps in childhood, 
often requiring years for its fulfillment ; so the 
marrying here and the ownership of property in the 
other case go hand in hand and indicate the lapse 
of time. One other point of interest in this connec- 
tion (Mark x, 30) furnishes the qualifying words, 
" with persecutions." No human intelligence has 
yet appreciated the bitter persecutions of that period, 
but the point we would make is this : there are no 
persecutions in the millennium, yet the millennium 
comes between the resurrection and the end of all 
things. Therefore there must be an interval before 
the millennium, or after it, or both, in which these 
persecutions will be endured. 

With these aggregating and culminating argu- 
ments we close this division, assuming that the 
period thus variously described is that of which 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



25 



David spoke by inspiration, " The Lord said unto 
my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make 
thine enemies thy footstool ; " and of what we have 
learned of that period this is a summary : 

1. It is a regnant period, at least to the resur- 
rected ; Jesus reigns, the twelve reign with him. 

2. It is a possessory period, even to the resur- 
rected ; men then holding houses and lands. 

3. That these " children of the resurrection" can- 
not die; it is a stage of their immortality ; neverthe- 
less they eat and drink with Christ (Luke xxii, 30). 

4. That the institution of marriage does not 
exist with the resurrected. 

5. That, nevertheless, there is a restoration of 
families in the resurrection. 

6. That they, the resurrected, are not angels, but 
only comparable to them. 

7. That their condition differs from what it was 
in heaven, in that they have been " clothed upon" 
with their own bodies, now changed, glorified, and 
immortal. 

Second division : Their character, locality, and occu- 
pation. Their character is determined when they 
are " accounted worthy to obtain the resurrection 
from [among] the dead." Paul's highest ambition 
was to attain to that resurrection. " Blessed and 
holy," it is said, " is he that hath part in the first 
resurrection." This makes them " children of the 
resurrection," which in turn shows that they are 
already the children of God, which, moreover, was 
manifested in their lives, for the disciples had fol- 
lowed Jesus through his trials — mistranslated, temp- 



26 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



tations — and the rank and file, if I may so dis- 
tinguish them, had equally with them left father 
and mother, and wife and children, and houses and 
lands for his sake and the Gospel's. We might 
write a chapter on their character, but let it suffice 
that Jesus says, " They shall walk with me in white, 
for they are worthy." 

Their locality is determined by the official rela- 
tions of the one ; as Christ's vicegerents they could 
not reign in heaven, especially " rule the nations " 
by the proprietorship of the other; they assuredly 
hold their houses and lands in this world. Jesus 
does not say, " I will come to abide with you," for 
the deceased have no longer any possessions in this 
present world ; their deeds and letters patent are 
granted to them in the new kingdom. No ; he goes 
to prepare a place for them, he gives them a tem- 
porary home in heaven, and then comes back, bring- 
ing them with him, that where he is there they 
may be also. In his Father's domain there are many 
homes. Thank God for that ! The recognition of 
earthly friends in any period beyond the grave is a 
patent fact we will not here discuss, but the res- 
toration of them, in any of these periods, to those 
who have loved them here is a new subject among 
men ; so we will dwell on it briefly. All phrases 
adjectively used are necessarily limited by the 
nature of the thing they describe ; therefore " a 
hundredfold " does not mean a hundred wives, nor 
even children, but rather that your wife shall be a 
hundredfold more precious then than now, and 
your brother a hundredfold more a brother then 
than now. Did you ever think about the deep sig- 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



27 



nificance of your being a mother, or sister, or brother 
to the Lord Jesus Christ? As to your land, it may 
or may not be a hundred acres to one, but if it is a 
hundred times more valuable to you the end is 
met; the promise is fulfilled. 

There is a condition not mentioned here, but else- 
where stated with great clearness ; such is the nature 
of the conflict between Christianity and sin that a 
man's foes may be those of his own household. 
These shall not be counted worthy to obtain a 
resurrection from among the dead, and cannot, 
therefore, be with the head of the family in the 
regeneration. But the commandment of God pre- 
supposes that the family of a godly man will be a 
unit in the service of God, in which case they will 
be a unit in heaven. Much more might be said 
about the physical characteristics of the world at 
this time ; but they would have to be drawn from an- 
cient prophecy, which is outside of our purview at 
present, or from the Apocalypse, which we hesitate 
in this preliminary essay to approach. 

Occupation is a fruitful subject, and we shall be 
obliged to anticipate in some degree our exposition 
of the Apocalypse in order to do it justice. The third 
period is essentially the material period of divine his- 
tory. Could John Milton have realized the revela- 
tions of that period he w r ould have undoubtedly laid 
his wondrous imagery there. We begin with 1 Cor. 
xv, 24, 25. The proposition is: he mast reign be- 
fore the end comes, till he shall have put all enemies, 
with all their rule, authority, and power, under his 
feet. Nevertheless, the context represents God as 
subduing all things for him, linking this text with 



28 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



that which Jesus quotes from David, " Sit thou at 
my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy foot- 
stool/' This is only that unifying of the personali- 
ties which everywhere characterizes the holy word, 
as, for example, the creation is said to have been for 
Christ, through Christ, and by Christ ; however, five 
to one of all Scriptures attribute this work to the per- 
sonality of Jesus Christ ; and in that light we view it. 

If then during this period Jesus wages war with 
his enemies what will necessarily be the occupation 
of his followers? If in this state the law of sin 
that is in our members is warring against the Spirit, 
and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are con- 
trary one to the other, how much more when open 
war is waged by Jesus Christ against him who is the 
author of sin, the embodiment of evil, and the God 
of this world shall they who are Christ's wage war 
with the common enemy incessantly because they 
are contrary one to the other ! The admiring 
armies of the beast say, " Who is able to make war 
with him ? " " And it was given unto him to make 
war with the saints, and to overcome them," and if 
he overcame them, even sometimes, we can readily 
see how their prosperity is offset with " persecu- 
tions." But " He that leadeth into captivity shall 
go into captivity : he that killeth with the sword 
must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience 
and the faith of the saints." 

" These shall make war with the Lamb, and the 
Lamb shall overcome them : for he is Lord of 
lords, and King of kings : and they that are with 
him are called, and chosen, and faithful," 

We have introduced the above passage from Rev- 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



2 9 



elation to show that this is a period of war with evil ; 
and while we admit that the saints referred to may 
be living men, yet those who are ever with the Lord 
cannot be idle spectators of the struggles. And 
then we come to one about which there can be no 
doubt: "And the armies which were in heaven fol- 
lowed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, 
white and clean." This fine linen is said to have 
been the righteousness of the saints, and there can 
be little doubt as to who constitute this army, 

But it would appear that a period of war was suc- 
ceeded by one of peace (Rev. xx, 1-4); and as this 
peace is procured by the imprisonment of Satan 
the reasonable inference is that he had conducted 
the war, and with him the resurrected saints had 
fought, and by them he had been overcome, and with 
his fall the campaign closed, having lasted possibly 
a thousand years. At any rate an extended truce 
was now declared, and it is significant as to Satan's 
power that there can be no peace on earth so long 
as Satan is at liberty. But now that he is bound 
what shall the saints do to occupy their time? 
What do we read? " Blessed and holy is he that 
hath part in the first resurrection : on such the 
second death hath no power, but they shall be 
priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with 
him a thousand years." 

Now, dear reader, a moment's talk about the mil- 
lennium. You have, perhaps, already regarded this 
as an extended time of delicious indolence, when 
the happy-go-lucky inhabitants were gratuitously 
provided with comfort and delight, a fool's paradise, 
where there was no labor, and, better still, no law. 



3° 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



We are obliged, however reluctantly, to undeceive 
you, for this is the very period of which it is said 
(Rev. xix, 15), " He shall rule them [the nations] 
with a rod of iron," in fulfillment of David's proph- 
ecy. See Psalm ii, 8, 9. Jesus, "the man child," 
was born for that purpose. Note Rev. xii, 5. And 
that is what all this reigning means. " And I saw 
thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment 
[government] was given unto them: . . . and they 
lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years." 
" To him that overcometh, will I grant to sit with 
me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am 
set down with my Father in his throne." How 
perfectly this agrees with these words : " The Lord 
said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand until 
I make thine enemies thy footstool." 

We will not stop to discuss the relation of the 
Jews to this period, but you may rest assured that 
here the pledge and prophecy applies, " Ye which 
have followed me [here], in the regeneration when 
the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, 
ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the 
twelve tribes of Israel." Now, this power to rule 
the nations is vested in the Lord Jesus, but he is 
competent to delegate power to others, to have his 
heads of departments, his commanders and captains, 
his sheriffs and constabulary ; and in the absolute 
government of a world where will this subdivision 
of official function and accountability cease ? Hence 
we find in Rev. ii, 26, 27, " He that overcometh, and 
keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give 
power over the nations : and he shall rule them with 
a rod of iron ; as the vessels of a potter shall they 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



31 



be broken to shivers : even as I received of my 
Father." 

If you are critical you may limit this number, 
but if those were the martyrs of an epoch, what of 
the " hundred and forty-four thousand/' his white- 
horse bodyguard? (Rev. xiv, 1-4.) What of those 
who, like David, sheathing their swords, take up 
their harps upon the sea of glass? (Rev. xv, 2.) 
What of the innumerable multitude with robes and 
palms (Rev. vii, 9-17)'' who came out of great 
tribulation ? " Do not tell us that this is in the 
ultimate heaven, or ultimate something, because the 
alternations of day and night still continue, and the 
temple, which characterizes the millennium, still 
remains. So then we have found that the resur- 
rected hosts in some part of this period will fight, 
in some part will govern, and in some portion and 
places will sing and sound their trumpets. We will 
therefore close this division of our subject and pro- 
ceed to show, as best we can, the successive eras of 
this extended period. 

Third division : Indications as to length of time. 
First of all we ask this question : If that era, experi- 
ment, climax, or what-not, in this period called the 
millennium, occupies a thousand years, in the name 
of common sense why do these visionary adventists 
persist in compressing all the rest into three years 
and a half, or some other time of more indefinite 
brevity? If what Jesus and the apostles say of 
this period shows us that it is a time of final strug- 
gle with the prince of the powers of the air, and 
with all the subdivisions of the kingdom of dark- 
ness, and the omnipotent Conqueror signalizes his 



32 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



first great triumph over the foe by a truce, not of 
mutual compact, but of his own sovereignty, knowing 
that hostilities must be resumed at its close, is it 
reasonable to suppose that truce will last as long 
as the war ? 

If it be demonstrable that this is an experiment 
demanded by the unimpeachable equity of God, as 
the others have been, having one specific purpose 
in view and occupying a thousand years, is it rea- 
sonable to suppose that the dispensation in which 
it is an episode will last one thousand tJiree and a 
half years ? No ; the truth is that poor, short- 
sighted man, from the time that he sneered at the 
slow-grinding mills, "when once the long-suffering 
of God waited in the days of Noah," to the days 
when they say, " Where is the promise of his com- 
ing? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things 
continue as they were from the beginning of the 
creation,' ' has always sought to hurry God in his 
immutable purposes ; and every man of each age has 
thought, in his innocent egotism, that with his won- 
derful epoch the world's history must close, having 
reached the acme beyond which there could be noth- 
ing. And so our modern adventists, if they could 
but get Christ here, would reluctantly permit him 
to have a millennium only because it is recorded, 
and would scarce allow him a Pentecostal period 
of preparation between the opening graves of 
the first resurrection and the inauguration of his 
millennial kingdom. The disciples themselves were 
perfectly satisfied that with the destruction of Je- 
rusalem the pillars of the universe must fall, and 
so condensed their triple question into one, and the 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



33 



pitying Saviour answered them according to their 
folly. 

Now, we essay to prove that Jesus and the in- 
spired apostles describe the coming period as a 
struggle with the enemy of God and man. Jesus 
Christ said, " I beheld Satan as lightning fall from 
heaven." Most of us are strongly imbued with 
Milton's theology, but it will not bear sifting in the 
light of revelation. What countless ages may have 
passed since Satan forfeited heaven ! When did 
that " fall " occur? He does not seem to have been 
excluded in Job's time. 

The question is, Did Jesus speak of the present ? — 
the language would bear that construction ; or of the 
past ? — quite admissible ; or of the future ? — doubt- 
ful as to the text, but made probable by such reve- 
lation as bears upon it. He was not cast out two 
years before that time, for by divine appointment 
he met the Saviour in the wilderness, making him- 
self the unwitting instrument for the perfecting of 
the Saviour's qualifications. He was not cast out a 
year after that time, for Jesus said, " Simon, Simon, 
Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift 
you as wheat." He was not subjugated that chill 
morning when Judas and the mob met the Master 
in the gate of Gethsemane, for he said, " This is 
your hour, and the power of darkness." He was 
not ejected that day at noon, when the earth hung 
her head in gloom ; if he had been the aurora borealis 
of divine glory would have spanned the earth above 
the cross and the pyrotechny of heaven would have 
exceeded the splendor of a thousand suns. 

Perhaps you will say, " He fell in the resurrection 
3 



34 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



virtually, but not actually; for Paul still later testi- 
fies that he hath the "power of death." But let us 
consider the falling from heaven. Before the woman 
brought forth her man child the dragon's tail had 
drawn the third part of the stars of heaven. Now, 
if these stars are those angels of whom Jude thus 
speaks, " And the angels which kept not their first 
estate, but left their own habitation, he hath re- 
served in everlasting chains under darkness unto 
the judgment of the great day," then we have 
an account herein of the original rebellion of Satan 
against God before Christ came into the world, 
and if so, then before Adam fell, for he was then 
the enemy of God and a liar already ; what millions 
of years or ages before that time we cannot tell, 
nor does it matter. 

The next salient point in his history as recorded 
in this chapter is that he sought to devour the man 
child, that is, sought to prevent and overturn the 
plans of God and Christ in the affiliation. Then 
when God has defeated him in that, the history of 
the Church is carried forward (Rev. xii, 9) "a thou- 
sand two hundred and sixty days." Whatever 
number of centuries that may represent, it certainly 
is going on still. 

Then the history of Satan is taken up again at 
some indefinite time, to be determined by the con- 
text, and Satan was " cast out into the earth, and 
his angels were cast out with him." And when does 
the context determine that this was done? Not 
until there came " the kingdom of God " and the 
"power of his Christ " (Rev. xii, 10); not but what 
he had been the accuser for four thousand years 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 35 



already. But was he then cast out ? It does not 
say so. It says they overcame him by " the blood 
of the Lamb " — this carries it over into the resur- 
rection period, which is ours ; " and by the word of 
their testimony " — this carries it through apostolic 
days, since which there can have been no change. 
Therefore, during this dispensation particularly has 
Satan maintained his relation and been the accuser 
of our brethren day and night before God. 

Having then reached the end of this era in the 
prosecution of our quest, we pass into the ensuing, 
or " third period," still asking, When will Satan be 
cast out of heaven ? The next thing predicted of 
him is, " He hath great wrath, because he knoweth 
that his time is short." 

A thousand years is a short time by comparison 
with eight or nine thousand spent in vain endeavors 
to thwart the purposes of God. But let us reach the 
utmost accuracy that the case will admit of. " When 
the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he 
persecuted the woman which brought forth the man 
child. And to the woman were given two wings of 
a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilder- 
ness, into her place, where she is nourished for a 
time, and times, and half a time, from the face of 
the serpent." 

The Church, of which he had been the accuser, the 
resurrected Church, is thus represented as on wings 
and out of Satan's reach ; but the dates challenge our 
consideration. The impression obtains among the 
theologians and commentators that these periods 
of time, these dates, one stated as " a thousand two 
hundred and threescore days," and the other in the 



36 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



multiplying of " times," are in a general way equal. 
We will adopt this theory. Then the Church was on 
wings and out of Satan's reach, after h.e came into 
the earth, just as long as she had been without 
wings and subject to his accusations before he 
came, and of that period one thousand eight hun- 
dred and ninety-three years have already elapsed. 

Knowing that we are about to leave this subject 
obscure and unsatisfactory to you, we pray you, pa- 
tient reader, indulge us in a brief resume. Of what 
we have sought to say and to establish this is the 
substance. The fall of Satan, whom we believe to 
have been once the highest of archangels, is nowhere 
specifically described in the word of God, but only 
referred to as a fact. The reference to fallen angels 
in Jude (ver. 6) is, no doubt, their original declen- 
sion ; the reference in Rev. xii, 4, "And his tail 
drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did 
cast them to the earth," to the same, they having 
been involved in the ruin of Satan, their head. 
These make consistent the declaration of the Sav- 
iour: " He was a liar from the beginning, and the 
father of it;" " beginning' ' meaning not only the 
beginning of the world, but from the beginning of 
his defection. He had lied to and deceived the an- 
gels and been "a murderer" to them as well as to 
men. Then as to his or their punishment, if we 
understand hell to mean exclusion from God, then 
we can understand a partial exclusion, a being " re- 
served in everlasting chains under darkness unto 
the judgment of the great day." We can also rea- 
sonably appreciate that as the punishment of the 
inferiors is incomplete (" Hast thou come to torment 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



37 



us before the time?"), so the superior has limited 
prerogatives of which he will finally be dispossessed ; 
and that in " the judgment of the great day," when 
he and his angels and his human followers, and his 
works and products, from death to decrepitude or 
defilement, shall be cast into " everlasting fire pre- 
pared for the devil and his angels," they will suffer 
according to their liability to suffer from the utter 
extinction of material things, as the cities of Sodom 
or the bodies of men, to that which eternal spirits, 
or the equally immortal souls of men, can only suf- 
fer — " the death that never dies." 

And now, in conclusion, very reluctantly we turn 
to Daniel's chronology. All references to Old 
Testament prophecy we would most carefully 
avoid ; but a sense of duty compels us here to 
introduce the simple but sufficient statement of 
this period by the inspired prophet (Dan. xii, 
II, 12): " And from the time that the daily sac- 
rifice shall be taken away, and the abomination 
that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thou- 
sand two hundred and ninety days. Blessed is he 
that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three 
hundred and five and thirty days." The period of 
time extending from the cessation of the daily sac- 
rifice to an unknown point is " a thousand two 
hundred and ninety days." The custom has been 
to call each day a year, which makes twelve hun- 
dred and ninety years, a term of years that marks 
nothing, fits nothing, and leaves the expositor sadly 
in the dark. 

I wonder that men have not earlier seen that each 
hour is a month, and, therefore, every twenty-four 



38 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



hours two years. The expositor is right, therefore, 
in calling each day a year ; but he forgets that the 
night is equal to the day, and that therefore he 
must double his time. As to the epoch which 
closes this period, it is an era, and it closes with 
an era. 

We have, therefore, this simple declaration, that 
from the closing of the daily sacrifice to the second 
coming of Christ shall be two thousand five hundred 
and eighty years. The daily sacrifice ceases forty 
years after the death and resurrection of Christ. 
Therefore the length of the epoch is two thousand 
six hundred and twenty years. 

Fortunately Daniel did not stop here. Like all 
prophets, he understood but little of that which he 
foretold, but he pursued his inquiries, and it was 
well he did, for the things in which he was inter- 
ested were not to take place in the era he had just 
given us. " Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh 
to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty 
days." He desired to know the time of the end, 
and so now he knows it. The second period, which 
was then remote from his, was to be two thousand 
six hundred and twenty years ; the third period, suc- 
ceeding it, was to be two thousand six hundred and 
seventy years, one jubilee longer, which is "the 
time of the end." 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



39 



PICTURE I.* 

(Chapters iv and v.) 

WE suppose we shall not offend the judg- 
ment of any intelligent reader when we 
say that the Apocalypse begins with the fourth 
chapter and first verse of Revelation, at least so 
far as we are concerned ; for all that related to the 
" seven churches of Asia 99 has long since gone into 
history as the " things that must [did] shortly come 
to pass," whereas the remainder of this book is still, 
to us, the prophecy of " things which must be here- 
after." Without further premise, therefore, we en- 
ter upon our work, which is to show what the Book 
of Revelation still reveals. 

Our comprehensive proposition is that the book 
consists of twelve pictorial, epochal revelations of 
subjects, objectively presented, simple, clear, and 
severally complete, having each its own chronology, 
but having no chronological relation or succession, 
nevertheless constituting one harmonious whole, in 
the revelation of the world's future, from the second 
coming of Christ to the end of time. The fourth 
and fifth chapters constitute one of these pictures. 
They consist of things seen by John and described 
to us, allegorical in character, indefinite as to date, 
representative as to three things, namely, the glory 
of God omnipotent, the equity of his administra- 
tion, the agency of the Son, or " trie Lamb." 



4Q 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



The symbolizing of " seven lamps/' " sea of 
glass," " beasts " which " rest not day and night," 
etc., the writer would prefer to leave to those whose 
fancy is more vivid, or who find more pleasure 
therein, or who are more assured that fancy — their 
fancy — and verity are one and the same thing. Nev- 
ertheless, if the reader so desire, we will submit such 
explanation as commends itself to investigating 
thought, holding that all revelation of God is ex- 
plainable, mystery belonging to the egotistical lit- 
tleness of our humanity, and not being compatible 
with the dignity of divinity. This we 'would pre- 
mise, that the dramatis persona are not bona fide 
representations of individual characters in heaven, 
but are only the symbolisms of tire revelation and 
the rehearsal. 

First, who are " the seven spirits of God? " If 
we go back to the first chapter — which, while it deals 
directly with Christ in his relation to the seven typ- 
ical or particularized churches of Asia, is at the 
same time a prologue to the whole — we have 
" seven stars " representing " seven angels," not, as 
is commonly supposed, the seven pastors, for this 
would be inadequate, but seven angels having spe- 
cial charge of these churches, and to whom this cir- 
cular letter is addressed, not as a private or personal 
communication, but as an open prophetical declara- 
tion of Christ and the Holy Ghost with reference to 
these churches, their pastors, and their constituency 
till the fulfillment of the prophecy. In like manner 
seven flames in their magnificent symbolism are 
abstract representations of the " invisible God," who 
is not otherwise represented here. This throne, 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



41 



" set in heaven/' being that of Christ, and the " one 
[that] sat on the throne," the Son, " express image 
of his [Father's] person ; " while " the Lamb," per- 
sonification of redemption, is represented, in the 
same wonderful symbolism, as approaching the cre- 
ative Son (iv, 11) till he is absorbed into him (v, 6), 
and has seven horns and seven eyes, which both rep- 
resent the" seven spirits of God," making him iden- 
tical with God. The latter clause of v, 13, might 
better be rendered, " and power be unto him that 
sitteth upon the throne, [who is] the Lamb, forever 
and ever." 

From the seven spirits we turn to the twenty- 
four elders, introduced on this wise : " Round about 
the throne were four and twenty seats : and upon 
the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, 
clothed in white raiment ; and they had on their 
heads crowns of gold.'' The apostles were elders, 
though not exclusively so : " The elders which are 
among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a 
witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a par- 
taker of the glory that shall be revealed " (1 Peter 
v, 1). The apostles were promised thrones, " Verily 
I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in 
the regeneration when the Son a of man shall sit in 
the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve 
thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." 
This is part of the " regeneration," and twelve of 
these are apostles. Here is the beauty of the sym- 
bolical. John, not being dead, saw his own seat 
filled by representation four thousand years in ad- 
vance of the event. Did he appreciate the fact? 
But the question in every reader's mind is not as to 



42 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



whether twelve of these were apostles, but rather 
who are the other twelve, and why are they paired 
with the apostles? Everything seems to indicate 
that it was not God's will to make any communica- 
tion to John on the subject, nor to inspire in him 
any curiosity or communicativeness ; so the matter 
is left to our unaided speculation. Well, let us 
speculate. Speculation, in theology, as in every 
other science, is the factor who goes before to hold 
the light. The first ray of light here comes from 
x, ii, where John, shortly before his death, is told, 
while witnessing the rehearsal of a tremendous 
drama in which he is ultimately to take part, " Thou 
must prophesy again before many peoples, and na- 
tions, and tongues, and kings." In xi, 3, we find 
him in the picture of the yet future drama fulfill- 
ing this assigned task, with a companion. Who is 
he ? First, Zechariah (iv, 14), " These are the two 
anointed ones that stand by the Lord of the whole 
earth." Then Malachi says (iv, 5), " Behold, I will 
send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of 
the great and dreadful day of the Lord." This is 
the time, and this is the man. So John is paired 
with Elijah ! 

Now let us turn to the transfiguration. Jesus se- 
lects two out of three translated men — perhaps 
three ; why not ? If three, what phases of the 
Church or dispensation would they represent ? The 
patriarchal, legal, and prophetical ; possibly their 
translation had some reference to these relations. 
To meet these men who had never tasted death 
Jesus selects three disciples, thenceforward the 
privileged three, Peter, James, and John. If Enoch 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



43 



was there, he who had walked with the prehistoric 
Christ three hundred years, why was he not put for- 
ward ? Partly, perhaps, because the patriarchal 
dispensation was not so much involved in the esti- 
mation of these Jews. He left the world early in 
the dispensation to which he belonged, his partner 
in the future glory of Christ was to be short-lived in 
the dispensation to which he belonged ; therefore 
a corresponding modesty marks the conduct of 
James and Enoch; but we see they were paired for 
the glory which is to be revealed. Peter, who would 
fain have built a tabernacle for the man of taber- 
nacles, makes himself the eternal companion of 
Moses; while John, so reticent of himself, knows 
after their presentation that he shall be paired with 
Elijah after his resurrection at the coming of the 
Lord shall have put him on the same level with the 
translated prophet. As to who the others are it is 
but guesswork at best, but believing that we can 
make a shrewd guess we will submit a list, and you 
can see what you think of it : Enoch, Moses, Elijah, 
Elisha, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Samuel, David, 
Daniel, Zachariah, and Malachi, or John the Baptist, 
who, though he were last and least, in this relation to 
the kingdom of heaven, would be greater than his 
former self. 

As to the beasts, this should be translated ''liv- 
ing creatures." The description of these creatures 
shows that they were purely symbolical. As to 
whether or not John understood their emblematical 
significance we are unable to say. They have eyes 
" before and behind," to signify the symbolized 
knowledge which is in them of past and future; 



44 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



three pairs of wings to signify the triple, persistent 
activity of the same knowledge and power ; and were 
full of eyes " within/' not within their bodies, but 
within their wings, to show the universality as well 
as perpetuity of the intelligence involved and 
evolved in their representation, qualifying them to 
unite with the elders in every fresh development, 
not only to glorify " our Lord," who created all 
things, and for whose pleasure they are and were 
created, but to magnify the manifestations of " the 
Lamb." Their representative value is probably 
about this : they represent the four divisions of the 
progressive plan by which the earth and man are 
redeemed from under the curse, beginning (as every- 
thing in the Apocalypse does) after the fall. 

First, the savage nature of the animal creation, 
after the curse had been laid upon the earth, threat- 
ening to overthrow the " dominion of man ; " but the 
all-seeing wisdom of the Creator, whose plan was 
evolving itself even in this period, is represented by 
the multitudinous organs of vision with which this 
representation is endowed. Second, the complete 
subjection of all nature and all natural creation to 
man in his increasing numbers, intelligence, and con- 
formity to God's plan, even till it laps over on the 
millennium. Third, man himself, from the crudest 
condition to which depravity ever reduced him, up 
to the highest elevation of which his nature was 
capable while still confined to the earth, bringing us 
to another and higher state of being awaiting him. 
Fourth, that higher state (see xii, 14), where the same 
figure of eagles' wings is used, and every progressive 
stage is permeated with the all-seeing intelligence 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



45 



of God. The apocalyptic period is essentially 
Christ's period ; therefore the ascriptions of praise 
are to him " which was, and is, and is to come." 

The fifth chapter assumes — an assumption may as 
well be expressed pictorially as otherwise — that 
God's purposes are immutably inscribed, but sealed 
by divine inscrutability alike from heaven and earth. 
Then the Son is introduced into the picture as 
" the Lamb that was slain, but liveth again." The 
manner and extent of his redemption is declared, 
and heaven and earth are felicitously introduced in 
song and refrain, gratefully, intelligently, gloriously 
vindicating his merit and success. 

We will now devote the rest of this chapter to 
the manner of John's introduction into heaven's 
picture gallery. The revelation of the first three 
chapters was made to him on the first day of the 
week, "the Lord's day," in a condition which he 
calls being 44 in the Spirit." Jesus came to him 
in that condition, or rather revealed himself to 
him through that condition. The apparent sur- 
roundings were pictorial and typical, but the in- 
structions were verbally conveyed. We may thus 
contrast the first condition with the second, he 
was "in the Spirit," but his spirit was in him; 
that is, he was in a trance, the relations of mind 
and matter being not normally suspended, as in 
sleep, but abnormally disturbed ; nevertheless, the 
relation was physiologically in abeyance, and John 
was in Patmos. But now a different change has 
taken place, and one that nothing but the miracu- 
lous application of divine power would effect. An 
interval may have elapsed. The vision of a door 



46 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



may have presented itself to his natural sense or 
waking imagination, and the far-off sound of a trum- 
pet voice may have fallen on his natural ear — it 
would not have been the first time — then he says, 
" Immediately," that is, " Immediately [after] I was 
in the Spirit." The phenomena were to John, as on 
the former occasion ; but it reminds us of Paul, the 
only other man who went to heaven while yet alive^ 
and who said, "Whether in the body or out of the 
body I cannot tell," but one thing he seemed to 
know, namely, that he was "caught up." So John 
heard a voice saying, " Come up hither," and im- 
mediately — what ? — went up thither — he was in the 
spirit. Now, the condition on which alone his spirit 
could obey the mandate was disembodiment ; and 
John was practically dead and his body was left in 
Patmos. Of this as a prerogative we may hereafter 
speak, but now only desire to speak of the fact. 

The bo3y of Jesus was directly preserved from 
incipient decay, though he was absolutely dead, 
but the body of John was preserved from being 
absolutely dead that his spirit might return as from 
a trance. To state it scientifically, his soul was 
really brought into its future environments, and 
the correspondencies of his spiritual life were caused 
to take effect, and this brought him at that time 
into such conditional relation to heavenly things as 
he now enjoys, being dead ; it being a reasonable 
conclusion that the disembodied spirit came into 
intelligent relations with heaven from the fact that 
the souls under the altar were conscious of their 
condition and their surroundings, and held commu- 
nication with the spiritual and the divine (vi, 9—1 1). 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



47 



Paul says, " There is a natural body, and there is a 
spiritual body/' and the sooner we appreciate this 
proposition and apprehend that the one is abstracted 
from the other in death, and may be without death, 
the sooner we will understand Jesus and the resur- 
rection. 



4 8 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



Abstract Treatise. 

CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY. 

The Apocalypse is the psychological part of 
the New Testament, and if we write the psychol- 
ogy of the Apocalypse possibly we shall have writ- 
ten it all ; at any rate, we do not pledge ourselves 
to consider any other portion of Scripture exhaus- 
tively. 

First proposition : Continuity of being and pres- 
ervation of identity is in the soul (Rev. vi, 9- n). 
We will not quote — get your Testament. These 
were disembodied souls, " souls of them that were 
slain.' ' Their condition was that which Paul calls 
being " unclothed ; " evidently a suspended and, in 
some qualified degree, an unsatisfactory one. "And 
they cried" — not only did their individuality re- 
main, but it remained intact — " How long, O Lord, 
holy and true." They had recollection, reflection, 
comparison, consideration, passion, and desire. 
" Judge and avenge our blood ? " Here is continuity 
of being, they were in the body once, they are out 
of the body now ; the shedding of their blood was the 
immediate cause of their death, but did not result 
in any discontinuance of their consciousness. Here 
is further identity, and in a threefold presentation — 
first, in continued consciousness ; secondly, in con- 
tinued proprietorship ; thirdly, in a sense of justice 
and righteousness of claim. Lastly, their plea for a 
change of condition, though it brought upon them 
no reproof, did elicit, from Omnipotence itself, con- 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



49 



sideration of their claims in their individuality and 
identity, and that with reference to their past, their 
present, and their future. 

Again (i Thess. iv, 16-18), " The dead in Christ 
shall rise first." Of these, two things are predicated 
in the word of God : First, " They are written in the 
Lamb's book of life " (Rev. xxi, 27). Secondly 
(Matt, xxii, 32), " God is not the God of the dead, 
but of the living." Here is another argument for 
continuity of being and preservation of personal 
identity. They become God's while living, and 
while living are entered in the Lamb's book of life. 
They die, are buried, drowned, devoured, disinte- 
grated, dissolved, consumed, chemically resolved ; 
yet they remain in their identity upon the living 
record, and in their continuity are living witnesses to 
the fact. " Then we which are alive and remain " 
" shall all be changed " (1 Cor. xv, 51), "shall be 
caught up together with them in the clouds : . . . and 
so shall we ever be with the Lord." This change in 
the instantaneous dissolution of the natural bod- 
ies of the living is the precise equivalent of that 
wrought in the a dust of the Egyptian mummy, the 
ashes of a Grecian urn, or the residuum of a mod- 
ern crematory; for the resurrected dead and the 
reconstructed living are caught up together, that 
is, are in one general condition ; and the conserva- 
tion of identity and the continuity of being are in 
the unaffected and unchangeable and indestructi- 
ble soul. 

We now take some of those Scriptures that bear 
upon the condition of the soul after death and be- 
fore the resurrection. We would like to take the 
4 



5o 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



case of Samuel before Saul, when he appeared in an 
immaterial condition so like his former one as to be 
recognizable ; with conscious identity, recollection, 
appreciation of surroundings, and knowledge of the 
future ; but, as we are not bolstering up a theory, 
but investigating a science, we pass over what some 
may consider doubtful ground. 

We will take the case of Dives and Lazarus. 
Many do not consider it a narration of facts — the 
writer does not — but the facts of the narrative are 
these : Two such men have lived, or could have 
lived ; have had, or could have had, such relations ; 
did have, or would have had, such surroundings in 
death — both immediately before and immediately 
after; did or could have held such transposed rela- 
tion in their soul life, and, with all the knowledge 
it implies, hold such conversation with each other 
in the world of spirits, between which world and 
this there was not, but could have been, communica- 
tion. What then are the points briefly made ? The 
soul of Dives w r as acquainted with the soul of Laz- 
arus ; in other words, the continuity of being in Laz- 
arus related him to the conscious identity of Dives, 
and vice versa. Again, the sensibilities of their 
souls were susceptible of pain or peace. The first 
described by Dives with reference to himself, the 
other described by Abraham with reference to Laz- 
arus ; and the last inference germane to our subject 
is that Dives continued to retain the keenest inter- 
est in the relations of this life, as he had known 
them, whether he would continue to know them 
or not. 

Let this suffice. We now return to make applica- 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



51 



tion of what we have learned of the souls of living 
men. If the continuity of being and consciousness 
inhere in the soul, with inseparable intelligence and 
concurring sensibility, then it follows that the sep- 
aration of the body, or vehicle, from the soul does 
not affect the integrity of the man ; neither does 
the body, under any circumstances, lose its identity 
with the soul to which it belongs, for, if it were pos- 
sible for another soul to take it, greater confusion 
would be wrought than by demoniacal possession, 
when the soul w r as not supplanted but overruled, 
so that the man acted and spake as if he were the 
demon. 

Passing over sleep, which we have not space to 
consider, the common trance serves most clearly to 
show that the soul can come and go, and while gone 
exercise the faculties to which bodily organs are 
adapted without their use, so that the seeing, hear- 
ing, smelling, tasting, etc., are all in active exercise 
while the body is in a comatose condition. 

This brings us to the consideration of Paul and 
his temporary translation. Paul did not claim to 
have known whether he was in the body or out of 
the body. From all the analogies and probabilities 
of the case, what do you think about it ? We think 
God always makes the least possible departure 
from the natural law in the premises and the most 
economical exercise of the divine power ; therefore 
we think Paul's body was left in the convenient 
condition of suspended animation, while his soul, as 
completely free as in death, was taken by the Holy 
Ghost, the agent of Philip's transportation, up to 
heaven, as a special compliment and to secure a 



52 THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 

specific end ; and that it was only an exception to 
the law in the premises, and not a violation. Now, 
while our point is abundantly sustained — his being 
and his consciousness were there — we have the addi- 
tional item that in the exercise of the unencumbered 
faculties of his soul he was privileged to hear things 
which in the readjustment of his spiritual and ma- 
terial nature he might not, or, more likely, could not 
communicate to others. 

The case of John on Patmos differs in no psy- 
chical particular from that of Paul, and circumstan- 
tially only in that a great diorama was prepared 
for him, in which all heaven seems to have taken 
dramatic interest, and which he was instructed to 
communicate to us as a final and comprehensive 
revelation of God's purposes toward man. 

Perhaps we had better pause here to say a word 
about the origin of the soul. The law of reproduc- 
tion is the same from the highest to the lowest gra- 
dation. If the soul of the son were not generated 
by the father, then the fierce anger of the father 
would not be found by hereditary law in the soul 
of the son ; and if the mother did not contribute her 
share, then there would not be in that soul the 
modifying influence of a mother's tenderness. 

When the union of two germs of being, involving 
all the possibilities of future development, takes 
place, the product is one life, and all that appertains 
to that life is concomitant to that union, whether it 
be the single and almost motionless existence of an 
oyster or the active duality of a living man with a 
living soul. We fully appreciate to what our propo- 
sition leads — if death be a divorcement of these two 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



53 



lives, then is death an evil, and one to be remedied 
at the marriage of the Lamb ; and if in hell the soul 
is eternally bereaved, then is that bereavement but 
another evil in that soul's evil state. 

The soul is of quicker and closer interest to 
God in proportion as it is more like his nature 
though not of his nature. " All souls are mine," saith 
the Lord ; " as the soul of the father, so also the soul 
of the son is mine." God's highest gifts must be to 
our highest nature; therefore Jesus said," What shall 
it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and 
lose his own soul? " But we must not pass from this 
subject of the origin without saying a word about 
the soul of the Son of God, or, as he was wont to 
call himself, " the Son of man." We trust there are 
but few of our readers who have not learned to real- 
ize that He had a soul. What of its origin? Was 
it gendered of his mother? Most assuredly; how 
else could he have been a Hebrew and of the seed 
of Abraham? He was indebted to his mother for 
a human body and a human soul, and to his Father, 
under the law of generation, for the immaculate 
purity of his soul and the normal condition of his 
body. 

So much for origin. We are discussing the con- 
tinuity of being and the preservation of identity as 
inhering in the soul, and would do well to look 
still upon the typical man Christ Jesus as illustrat- 
ing our position. Some of the manifestations of his 
soul life and of his body life, in their interchangeable 
relations, may be of interest, for they set forth most 
clearly the changes that are to take place more 
slowly in the dual natures of his children, for when 



54 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



he became at his own will invisible and intangible 
to his enemies ; he simply passed out of one condi- 
tion into the other without waiting for death and 
resurrection. When he had drank, on the cross, the 
cup his soul dreaded, he expired his natural life, 
which left his soul free. He stood over Joseph 
and Nicodemus, and the women, in their work of 
love that evening. He waited for Mary at his tomb, 
not having as yet ascended to his Father, when the 
light of the resurrection morn dawned on the suburbs 
of Jerusalem. As we are not dealing with the resur- 
rection of the body, however, but only with the 
nature of the soul, we simply make this point, that 
after his resurrection if he could put off or put on 
his natural body at his own will, not in the sense of 
laying it down and leaving it, as in the tomb, but 
making it a body or not a body, visible or not vis- 
ible, ponderable or imponderable, tangible or in- 
tangible — for this is what he evidently did — taking 
his body through closed doors in its essence, dis- 
playing it when there in its substance : " Reach 
hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach 
hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side : and be 
not faithless, but believing" — we say, if he could do 
thus with his body, then the essential and inde- 
pendent identity and integrity of his being lay in 
his soul. 

There must have been in him a point of union 
between his human nature then recently engendered 
and the uncreated and eternal Son. What was it ? 
Matter yields to spirit, but they cannot blend: he 
was not an amalgam of divinity and matter. We 
will look at the analogy in man a moment, and then 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



5 5 



draw our conclusions. God's Spirit touches man's 
spirit with conviction and consciousness and power: 
" The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit." 
So the soul of Jesus, and his human intellect, was 
illuminated by the Holy Ghost. In all his tests 
and trials from the wilderness, by way of Geth- 
semane, to Calvary, he was sustained by the Holy 
Ghost. His miracles were wrought through the 
agency of the Holy Ghost ; and the only difference 
the wisdom of the Trinity permitted between his 
humanity and ours is that described by the Scrip- 
ture, " God giveth not the Spirit by measure to 
him." We answer the question then, It was in his 
human soul, and go to Gethsemane for the proof : 
14 My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death " 
(Matt, xxvi, 38). 

Now for a brief analysis of this sorrow. Noth- 
ing belonging to his bodily nature, pain, weari- 
ness, or death, is worthy to be taken into human 
account ; he was not less, but more than human 
heroes. The non-vicarious sufferings, whether of 
buffetings, or thorns, or nails, were of no magni- 
tude to him: his soul shrank from an intelligent 
appreciation of suffering yet to be endured in his 
soul. Whence came this more than human in- 
telligence ? No human soul can naturally appreci- 
ate its future ; but so keenly did he feel what he 
had to suffer that his physical frame sank in bloody 
sweat under his psychical sufferings. The intelli- 
gence was divine. Omniscience was funneled down 
upon his human intellect, and the divinity that fur- 
nished knowledge to crush furnished also the power 
to sustain, and the blood his sufferings expressed 



56 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



dripped through the fingers of the angel that sup- 
ported him. 

So then we learn that there was in that soul, as in 
all souls, a capacity to meet God. And we must 
further learn that the intelligence thus conveyed 
was not confined to the time or circumstances of 
Gethsemane : " How knoweth this man letters, hav- 
ing never learned?" The knowledge of fact, lan- 
guage, and simile was not divine knowledge, for it 
inhered in and appertained to his human soul, but 
it was divinely imparted ; and here again he differed 
from other men only in degree : " If any of you lack 
wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all liber- 
ally ; . . . and it shall be given him." 

Having spoken of the possible contact of the 
divine Spirit and the human soul it is proper that 
we should pause here and say a word about dreams 
and inspiration. 

Dreams have been employed of God from the 
time of Joseph, the son of Jacob, to that of Joseph 
the husband of Mary, as one of the channels through 
which he was pleased to convey information to the 
souls of men, and we cannot in justice pass it by. 
The philosophy of the thing, however, is simple 
and easily told. Of course God could give to the 
ordinary dream shape and coherence and signifi- 
cance to serve his own purpose, as in the case of 
Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, and others. On the 
other hand, he could extend the condition to that 
of the trance, and give visions like those of Eze- 
kiel on tjie Chebar or Daniel on the Ulai. But 
that of which we desire to give the philosophy 
is such revelation as may come to us through 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



57 



the mare extended perceptions of the soul when free 
in sleep. 

A dream is the action of mind on matter during 
the incomplete relation of the two, as the horrible 
presentations of mania a pot a or the vagaries of 
common delirium are its action under circum- 
stances of disease or material unfitness. Most of 
our dreams are in the morning, when, as we say, our 
sleep is broken. The inference is, from their inco- 
herence, that the action of the unfettered mind 
cannot be conveyed to the consciousness of adjusted 
mind and body. Where, then, is the point of com- 
munication between the free spirit and the natural 
condition ? We say free spirit, for it must be borne 
in mind that the soul freed in sleep does not go 
into, nor communicate with, any other world than 
this. His associations (if any there be) must be of 
this world to which he belongs, and no communi- 
cations can be had with any superior state except 
they be miraculous. But the question is: How can 
he communicate to the normal condition that 
knowledge which he acquired, being measurably 
free from material restraint? We answer: There is 
obviously a point when the soul in resuming its 
bodily machinery between sleeping and waking, 
between in and out, when the natural understand- 
ing can be reached and an impression made. It is 
like the bullet through the casemate, the result of 
coincidences not often occurring, but possible, nev- 
ertheless. The sleeper in New York, at 4:30 A. M., 
springs from his bed with a consciousness that his 
brother in San Francisco has just expired. 

We would not be misunderstood ; we mean to 



58 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



say that this point of communication is still open 
between man's free spirit and his normal intelli- 
gence, and that God probably availed himself of it 
in the days of direct revelation. The reign of 
Archelaus was possibly thus conveyed to Joseph, 
and the innocence of Jesus to Pilate's wife. It has 
passed, and we would only draw the line sharply 
between the possibilities of sound philosophy and 
the vagaries of a silly superstition, oscillating be- 
tween the meaning of dreams and the messages 
of spirit-rappers, and lay down a proposition not 
appropriate to argue in this connection, but in every 
way worthy of your consideration. It is morally 
impossible that there sliould be any miracle or direct 
communication from heaven by dreams or otherwise 
in this age in which we live. 

Now a word about inspiration, around which a 
great deal of modern misapprehension clings. In- 
spiration has only two features : first, knowledge 
of facts, past, present, or future, is conveyed to the 
perceptive faculties of the soul through or inde- 
pendently of the natural channels by the Holy 
Ghost ; secondly, from the time of its impartation 
it is conserved by what we understand as provi- 
dence. In this way, and to this degree only, is 
the language of the prophet constrained. He may 
tell it in his own words, but he must make no mis- 
take. Being told, the record is preserved from 
extinction, subsequent errors are prevented or re- 
moved, and the truth of revelation stands unchange- 
able and immovable as the pillars of the universe, 
through the preventing power of God. 

The methods of conveying divine knowledge to 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



59 



human minds are infinitely various. Moses saw a 
panorama of the creation, in which the divine work 
of fifty thousand years was revealed in a few min- 
utes, and a map of the geography of Eden that still 
excludes speculation. Isaiah saw a picture of the 
crucifixion. Gabriel kindly and circumstantially 
explained to Mary the mystery of the incarnation, 
while our blessed Lord took Paul up to heaven for 
purposes of personal interview and revelation. "All 
Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is 
profitable " to all ends for which he designed it. 

Second division : Divine origin of the soul ; its 
original and inalienable quality of immortality. We 
have spoken of the origin of each particular soul by 
reproduction. But as there was an origin of the 
generic body, succeeded by a plan of reproduction, 
so there must have been a primal origin of the soul 
succeeded by a like plan of reproduction. And it is 
not only popular, but self-evident, that the soul had a 
separable origin as well as a separable constituency; 
of that origin and that constituency we now desire 
to speak. 

We assume that the production of man's body out 
of pre-existing elements, " dust of the earth," was 
the crowning act of God's physical creation. Not 
that he was so formed that he could rend like the 
lion, or run like the antelope, or climb like the ape, 
or care for himself at birth like the quail. But that 
his aggregated possibilities were superior to those 
of any other animal, and consequently of all other 
animals put together. Here is evidence of com- 
prehensive design in the creation. The Ameri- 
can Indian may seem, upon the level of brute in- 



6o 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



stinct, to be superior to the whole brute kingdom, 
but it is not possible that dual man, with his com- 
bined advantages, can ever descend to that level. 
The existence of a soul in man does so energize his 
being, that if his mental acquirements did not ex- 
ceed the aggregated intelligence of the brute, yet 
nevertheless he would be the dominant inhabitant 
of the earth. 

God, having prepared the material house and 
vehicle for spiritual occupancy, " breathed into his 
nostrils the breath of [lives], and man became a living 
soul " — dual lives and doubly reproductive lives, 
the natural life dependent upon, and allied to 
the soul. Let none cavil ; there never was a human 
being without a soul. There never was a human 
soul separated from its body without death, save that 
of Moses (miraculously). And the great typical 
Man, in whose image we are all made, withdrew his 
natural life from his body, that it might be dead ; but 
retained that life in his soul, that, in obedience to 
the law of human construction, it might, according 
to his divine will, reanimate that body, so that he 
should live again in his human identity. 

The declarations and the inferences of the word 
of God as to creation blend into such harmonious 
completeness that we feel no diffidence in assuming 
the declarative and saying, "This is the word of 
God." When the Logos took upon himself the work 
of creation he began at the highest creative possi- 
bility ; and the first of his creations was as near to 
himself (the created Logos) as he, the Logos, was 
to the uncreated triune God, of which Trinity he 
was the second inseparable personality ; and that in 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



61 



peopling heaven, or space, he descended to the 
bottom of the independent spiritual grade of beings, 
angels: " Thou hast made [man] a little lower than 
the angels. 99 

From the Mosaic revelation we assume that, hav- 
ing done this, he, after the lapse possibly of mil- 
lions of ages, or at least in his own good time and 
according to his infinite wisdom, began the creation 
of material things on an ascending scale — low or- 
ganism, low form of life; higher organism, higher 
life. Whether or not all globes and suns and solar 
systems sprang simultaneously into being, whether 
our globe is younger or older than her sisters or all 
are twins alike in this sidereal family, revelation 
does not say. It seems to say that through per- 
haps fifty thousand years God had been prepar- 
ing for man's epoch the world on which we live, 
and that when the point of union had been reached 
between the ascending scale of matter and the de- 
scending scale of spirit, then was it said in the 
councils of the Trinity, " Let us make man in our 
image." A material complement to the gloriously 
spiritual Logos, as he was a spiritually visible com- 
plement to the invisible infinity of God. Thus the 
vehicular man with a soul was the last creation of 
the Son, as the visible Logos was " the beginning of 
the creation of God 99 (Rev. iii, 14). 

Now as to the immortality of the soul. The law 
of all material things, including the body of man, is 
elemental resolution or decomposition by oxygen. 
Life and organism — the lower forms of organism we 
have not learned to appreciate as life — alone pre- 
serve matter from decomposition. Organism be- 



62 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



longs to constructive intelligence, and life to some 
higher domain, from which, or through which, it 
descends to the level of matter. Therefore, in the 
nature of things, neither of them is subject to this 
law of matter; they cannot have in themselves the 
principles of cessation, dissolution, or decay. There 
is no decomposition of life in our chemistry and 
no discontinuance of soul or spirit under any law 
appreciable to our philosophy. As the soul evi- 
dently belongs to some higher grade of being, the 
inference of the intelligent heathen was that it 
never died. But the twilight ray of human intelli- 
gence is swallowed up in the noontime light of 
divine revelation, which tells us that the life of the 
soul is a life of eternal consciousness, and the death 
of the soul is a death of eternal consciousness. 
Therefore, continuance is the law of its being as 
discontinuance is the law of all beneath its level. 
Naturally the body cannot live, and in its nature 
the soul can never die. All inferior life ceases with 
the disarrangement of its material vehicle ; but 
human life, being withdrawn from the physical con- 
stitution to which it is related by the soul, is by the 
soul retained subject, together with the soul, to the 
will of the Creator. " Thou fool, this night thy 
soul shall be required of thee." " Father, into thy 
hands I commend my spirit." " I will raise him up 
at the last day/' " Marvel not at this ; for the hour 
is coming, in the which all that are in the graves 
shall hear his voice." The immortality of the soul 
is therefore an inalienable part of its divine consti- 
tution. 

Third division : Relation of the soul to the body. 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



63 



Every passion has its seat in the soul and its com- 
plement or corollary in the body. The first mar- 
riage in the universe of God was the marriage of the 
body to the soul, which was the linking of the 
systems of creation together. The life of the soul 
was intended to be a humble one in the beginning, 
bound to the body. The life of the body (creature) 
was intended to be ultimately an exalted one, par- 
ticipator with the soul. Like man and wife they 
were intended to be a unit for good, but, like man 
and wife, they were constitutionally separable by 
sin. Their oneness in virtue was the mystery of the 
angels. Their connection in sin was the mockery 
of the devil. Their purity in the relation made 
them jointly God's home, who dwelt alike in 
the body and the soul. Their unlawful com- 
merce made them alike outcasts ; alike in pain, 
alike in darkness, alike in their respective doom. 
The body was dowered by the soul with immortal- 
ity ; they were divorced by sin, and the dower for- 
feited, for God said to the body, " Dust thou art, and 
unto dust shalt thou return. ,, The renewed soul re- 
gains in Christ all that the devil made him lose, and 
reendows the body with a blessed immortality; but 
it is reasonable to suppose that after the body of 
the wicked has been raised in the resurrection, to 
serve the end of equitable judgment, it will be de- 
stroyed, with final dissolution, in the " second death." 
Their probation was to have been on the highest 
level of their bodily capacities, in which " the ear- 
nest expectation of the creature waited for the 
manifestation of the sons of God." Their reward 
was to be adoption into the nearer circles of God's 



6 4 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



family and elevation of their compound nature to- 
ward that of Christ. There was no separation in 
the divine plan ; God had joined them together never 
to be put asunder. Original divorce had its origin 
in hell. 

Every passion has its enduring relation to the 
soul and its complement or corollary in the body. 
We venture on this broad proposition, not that we 
feel called to make or to sustain it under the head 
of Christian psychology, but because it is related to, 
and explanatory of, things which we must consider. 

As we shall speak hereafter, perhaps, of the qualities 
that are peculiar to the soul we would now consider 
briefly some of the typical passions in their double 
relations. Let us take love, the divinest of the list. 
The God who made us locates in our soul that love 
which he demands of us : " Thou shalt love the Lord 
thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul ; " 
" For the Lord your God proveth you, to know 
whether ye love the Lord your God with all your 
heart and with all your soul ; " u If a man love me, 
he will keep my words : and my Father will love 
him, and we will come unto him, and make our 
abode with him" — that is, in the soul — for Paul 
prayed for the Ephesians, " that Christ might dwell 
in their hearts" (Eph. iii, 17). This is the teaching 
of Scripture. The love of the soul with or without 
the body is the demand of God. The highest af- 
fection on human level has its seat in the soul. " The 
soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David/' 
Among the holiest affections we reckon that which 
leads to and lingers in the conjugal relation. It 
bears severe tests, such as the loss of health, of 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



65 



beauty, and of life. True, the passion for the lus- 
trous eye, the cherry lip, the blooming cheek show- 
how the complemental motions of the body mingle 
with the movings of the soul, till none can tell 
where the glow of the heavenly light has blended 
with the color of the rose; nevertheless, so much of 
it as commands our highest admiration and sur- 
vives " the wreck of matter and the crush of worlds " 
is in and of the soul. 

Let us take anger, a constituent passion of the 
divine character. " God is angry with the wicked 
every day ; " " And when he had looked round 
about on them with anger;" " And when he had 
made a scourge of small cords he drove them all out 
of the temple." If you can conceive of anger taken 
out of the divine constitution, then you can conceive 
of an incomplete Deity. If you can conceive of its 
being taken out of a soul, then you can appreciate 
a dismembered soul. In its righteous exercise in 
the soul of man it is part of the divine portraiture 
and of as high a grade as the divine resemblance can 
make it. Yet it ranges so low in the depraved soul 
that the wise man can say, " Anger resteth in the 
bosom of fools." " Be ye angry and sin not : let not 
the sun go down upon your wrath." In its bodily 
corollary we see the flashing eye, the uplifted hand, 
the rapid pulse, the high-strung muscle ; these are 
the concomitants of rage, and the sequence of their 
action is murder. But with or without the coveted 
blow the soul hates on, and can hate on in confine- 
ment or in sickness, in the article of death or the 
eternity of hell. 

Joy is born of the soul, for its highest type is be- 
5 



66 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



gotten there of the Holy Ghost. It appertains to 
the soul co-extensively with its relations to God (from 
whose divine perfection joy is eternally inalienable), 
and fails only in the degree in which it is dead to 
love and dead to light. We admit that joy, like any 
other passion, is but a product, the opportunity of 
conditions on a capacity. The conditions in the 
universe of God are equal to the infinite demand of 
divinity, the capacity of the human soul is enlarged 
and the conditions met in the degree in which the 
soul comes into line with God and is made partaker 
of the divine character. The expedients and sub- 
stitutes and stimulants that are laid along the corol- 
lary lines afford the saddest and most numerous 
pictures of depravity it is our misfortune to see, ex- 
tending from the aesthetic to the vile, from fashion- 
able dissipation to the kennel and the gutter. The 
rule with the human soul now is that as its joy is so 
may its pain be — in other words, that its capacities 
for joy or suffering are constitutionally and educa- 
tionally equal ; and upon this fact hangs much of 
God's eternal equity. Whether or not this princi- 
ple applies to the perfection of the divine constitu- 
tion, who can tell? We think it is a fair inference. 
Whether or not the principle obtains in the perfected 
soul of future eternity we cannot say, but think it is 
a fair inference that capacity to suffer is inherent alike 
in the divine and human constitutions, and that they 
will only cease to suffer when all the conditions of 
suffering are removed. We will close. How just it 
is with these double relations of our passional 
natures that we should give account to God for the 
deeds done in the body. 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



6 7 



Fourth division : Probation of soul co-extensive 
with its relations to the body ; hence the necessity 
for a circumstantial judgment and resurrection for 
that purpose. As we are dealing rather with the 
philosophy than the theology of our subject we do 
not quote such Scriptures as " receive according to 
that he hath done, whether it be good or bad/' and 
sit down, but would rather call attention of the 
reader to the fact that there was no abrogation of 
the probationary plan, but simply a change, trans- 
fer, and adaptation. We feel sure that under the 
original plan, while increase of the human family 
would have been slow and age correspondingly great, 
the children would have known that their parents 
were going out of a probation which they were 
entering upon. We have elsewhere said that the 
term was most likely a thousand years, and at the 
expiration of that period they certainly would not 
be translated to heaven, for heaven was not prepared 
for man, neither was man made for heaven. We 
have nothing but surmise here; yet we feel per- 
suaded that aspirations would have been awakened 
in succeeding generations because some knowledge 
must have reached them of a plan evolving itself on 
the earth. 

The " change " was chiefly from a condition of 
unbiased simplicity to one of depravity, that is, of 
sinful predisposition, the "transfer" from a small 
home full of good to the wide world full of thorns 
and thistles, of labor and limited production. The 
" adaptation " consisted of that whole scheme of 
gracious interference without which fallen man 
could have done nothing. If then original proba- 



68 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



tion consisted of tests, to be applied under the pri- 
mal relations of soul and body for a definite length 
of time, is it not reasonable to suppose that the 
ensuing one would conform to the circumstances 
under which it was established, not now limited 
by a definite period but by the complicated opera- 
tions of the curse upon the earth and the conse- 
quences of sin upon their systems? Surely this 
argument is sufficiently conclusive to be riveted by 
the word of God: "It is appointed unto man once 
to die, but after this the judgment." 

Out of this condition of things come the two 
necessities already declared: First, that of "cir- 
cumstantial judgment." About the condition of 
a disembodied soul at and after the time of its dis- 
embodiment there can be no question among the 
intelligences of the universe. But taking things 
for granted would not meet the ends of the judg- 
ment, neither would it answer to fall back on the 
sovereignty of God, " He hath mercy on whom 
he will have mercy/' neither upon the infinite merits 
of Christ's atonement. One would be met with the 
inquiry, By what moral right is this sovereignty 
regulated? and the other by the demand, Why were 
not many others, if not all, saved by these merits? 
The divinely ordained review and investigation of 
that day must, from the beginning to the end of that 
relation, show, without distinction between saint 
and sinner, by what equitable exercise of his clem- 
ency some were saved and by what righteous judg- 
ment others were condemned. 

Secondly, to this end the resurrection must be 
had. Of course death is the result, though not 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 69 



the penalty, of sin, and resurrection is the result of 
death. The probation is now extended over the 
lives of many generations. They pass from the 
theater of action with all the surrounding, modify- 
ing, and interlocking influences of their period. 
Equity demands that they stand in their bodily 
identity, with their contemporaneous surroundings 
before the Judge, and this can only be procured by 
the resurrection, and to this end and for this pur- 
pose it was designed ; albeit, we admit, of course, 
that another end is subserved, namely, that the 
millions of the redeemed, after the judgment, enter 
simultaneously into the felicities of their re-embodied 
and eternal condition. But how greatly our posi- 
tion is strengthened here by the condition of the 
wicked, whose bodies live in their resurrected state 
just long enough to serve the end of the judgment, 
and are then finally resolved in the fervent heat of 
earth's alembic, leaving their naked souls to suffer, 
as they only can, the pangs of hell. 

This sets the question of the resurrection of the 
brute creation at rest ; it is unphilosophical. Im- 
mortality cannot appertain to their grade of being, 
and would not be conferred upon them by a mi- 
raculous resurrection. And resurrection, being as 
it were an afterthought in the divine provision, and 
growing out of the necessities of our equitable 
judgment, cannot apply any further than the judg- 
ment extends, and cannot comprehend the brute 
creation unless they also are to be judged ; and if 
they are to be judged, then they must first have an 
intelligence, a conscience, a revelation, and a re- 
ligion. 



7o 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



Fifth division : Partial physiology of the soul. 
Independence of the will, resident in the soul and 
potential as to the body, the groundwork of the 
judgment. The constitution of the soul is just 
beginning to shape itself into a science, and is not 
yet recognized as such. We have a well-defined 
physiology taught in our schools. Phrenology, 
after being wonderfully pushed in the early part 
of the present century, lies dormant, waiting for 
another impulse to lay it alongside of the physical 
sciences taught in our schools. But psychology is 
the stock in trade of the traveling clairvoyant, who is 
cousin-germane to the resident spiritualist or peri- 
patetic fortune teller. Feared, therefore, and es- 
chewed by the thinking men of the age, it has no 
solidity and no development in the popular mind. 
And if the average man or woman of the day would 
tell you what they honestly thought about the soul 
they would tell you that they had only thought of 
it as an indefinable gaseous something which con- 
stituted the essence of life and evaporated from the 
body at death. 

But laying aside censoriousness, the writer would, 
with becoming humility, submit an imperfect sketch 
of the soul, to be filled out by wiser minds of living 
men or generations yet to come. The shape and 
size of the soul, the great Dr. Whedon seems to 
have thought, corresponded with that of the body 
which it occupied. Well, why not? Must it be 
enlarged by expansion to the size of an elephant, or 
have wings like the material navigators of the sky? 
Does it weave itself into manifold fantastic forms 
like the smoke expelled from the engine, or find 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



71 



its locality and cohesion in its greater density like 
carbonic acid gas? How was it with the fourfold 
nature of Christ? Where was his glorified body? 
Reduced in his natural body; his natural body 
warmed up into glory on the mount of transfigura- 
tion, and subsided into nature when the end was 
served. Where was his human soul, the one im- 
portant thing in taking our likeness upon himself? 
Permeating his human body, it was of finer material. 
Where was his divinity? Permeating his human 
soul, it was pure spirit : Stephen saw him in his 
fourfold form standing at the right hand of God. 
On the cross he said, " Father, into thy hands I 
commend my [soul]." He was separated into 
three appreciable constituencies: his divinity was 
in the triune God, called "the Father;" his soul 
was in the " hands" (keeping care) of God, "his 
Father ; M nevertheless, out of the eyes of that soul 
he watched that other part, his body, in the hands 
of Joseph and John ; and that dead, gashed body 
involved " the glory he had with the Father before 
the world was." Here is the typical man after 
whose model we are all made ; let us think and 
learn. 

Has the soul faculties after which the five senses 
of the body have been modeled f Assuredly the 
soul has all these faculties originally and independ- 
ently, but adaptable to the bodily organs when 
united to the body. We will now carry our inves- 
tigations into the book with which especially we 
have to do, that of Revelation. Leaving the first 
presentation to John, about which there might be 
diverse opinions, we start with the point where he 



72 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



entered through the open door into heaven. Few, 
we suppose, will assume that he took his body with 
him. If then his soul went into heaven, it went 
there to see with all the extended powers of its vision. 
His was a disembodied soul to the degree of an en- 
tranced condition, whether natural or supernatural. 
We admit that nothing which he saw enacted was 
real ; nevertheless, all were real characters, and God 
responsible for the exactitude with which all future 
things were there portrayed. He was therefore 
practically surrounded by spiritual beings who had 
sight and were visible to his sight, by resurrected 
men in glorified bodies who saw and were seen by 
him. To think otherwise would be to reflect, as we 
would not dare to do, on the Holy Spirit who de- 
vised this rehearsal. He saw in one of the visions 
presented to him the souls of the martyrs of some 
period, not yet resurrected, who are not represented 
as seeing; but they spoke and were spoken to, hav- 
ing the faculty of speech and the sense of hearing. 
John, who was in a condition anticipating his soul- 
life, heard everything, saw everything, felt every- 
thing, and when his "little book " was put into his 
hands he tasted alike its sweet and bitter qualities. 
Paul's experience in the spirit-world corroborates 
all this until the argument becomes pretty strong 
for the exercise of all the senses in all our independ- 
ent or future conditions. 

Again, think of angelic manifestations! Jesus 
said, " A spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me 
have." So angels are invisible and intangible, yet 
they are made visible here. How ? According to 
the rule that the divine power is always economi- 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



73 



cally employed, no change is made in the angel, no 
miracle is wrought on the natural organs of sight. 
The soul simply looks through the natural partition 
and sees as if there were no body there. So we 
think the fact is pretty well established that the 
soul has all these senses inhering in itself which 
are manifested in the body and exercised through 
bodily organs. 

On the passions we have already dwelt. Of these 
Jesus said explicitly their residence w r as in the 
heart. That is the responsible part, as distinguished 
from the irresponsible body, and that is the 
soul. To this division belongs all the perceptive 
faculties, making in their total what is called the 
mind. These are the servants of the passions by 
permission of the will, and employ in their turn the 
subordinate faculties of the body or physical senses. 
The federal head of the normal soul was God, and 
the congress of its intelligences was to govern with 
reference to an absolute power and infallible wis- 
dom behind them. The substitution of Satan for 
God in the soul of the wicked leaves him without 
appellate relations or supreme judicature save 
in the tyrant Satan, who governs like Nero. 
Hence the aimless confusion of his life and degen- 
eracy of his being. The action of this congress, 
moved by the passions and employing the above 
mentioned faculties to furnish data upon which 
their conclusions are predicated, we call reason. 
Their conclusions would have been rightly and 
rapidly reached in our unfallen state, because the 
soul knew good only, and not evil, and are rightly 
and rapidly reached now in proportion as the con- 



74 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



gress is determined to leave evil for good. The in- 
fallible condition of the soul in the future state 
grows, no doubt, out of its having passed through 
evil back into good, with all that appertains to that 
transition, while the persistent wrong and folly, if 
there be any, of wicked spirits grows out of their 
having passed only out of good into irremediable 
evil. We have been a little drawn out here ; we 
only intended to say that the whole intellectual 
man goes with the soul to which it appertains, 
the body having, to it, none other than a vehicular 
relation. 

Now we take a step higher and consider those 
qualities which are measurably and perceptibly, 
separable from the body and dominant over it, such 
as the will. The will has no complement in the 
body. The body is merely the servant of the will, 
and surrenders alimentiveness, animality, etc., to 
the authority of the will. The body is made sick 
or made well, tortured or killed, by this autocrat, 
often with little resistance. It is not our province 
here to dwell upon the war waged between the 
will and the passions, which w r e have shown to be 
partly of the soul and partly of the body. But in 
this connection the distinction between the will and 
the power of the will must be strongly insisted upon. 
The soul owes fealty to God, the great King, and 
may will to subdue its entire province to God with 
a strong or feeble will; everything may be subor- 
dinated to the will of God, or only a show of divine 
authority set up, easily overthrown by an outbreak 
of the passions. Here the soul must be responsible 
to God for the power of the will ; for it may be said 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



75 



with propriety that if man only wills to will God 
will do the rest; in other words, God knows the 
weakness of our fallen nature and the obstacles with 
which we have to contend, and measures all things 
by the honesty of our purpose. The will of the 
beast lies between his varied instincts and his phys- 
ical powers, and his accountability to God, if he 
had any, could not go beyond his instincts, which 
absolutely govern him. But in man the animal 
and instinctive nature leaves off short of the will, 
and all that appertains to his spiritual nature is 
inserted, and his will, at the head of his intelligences, 
made answerable to God according to the measure 
of that intelligence. Hence if the intervening in- 
telligence be small the will comes close behind the 
instincts, as in the savage, whereas if it be large the 
instincts are not recognized, as in the philosopher. 

This brings us to the consideration of a proposi- 
tion submitted to the reflection of the author, in a 
public congregation, by the Rev. Dr. Josiah Strong, 
which is that " consciousness is the knowledge of 
the soul." The explanation made by himself, if we 
remember rightly, was that whereas human knowl- 
edge of human things was the result of compari- 
son, ratiocination, and experiment, the knowledge 
which the soul had of divine things was the knowl- 
edge of consciousness instantaneous and complete. 
This sheds light on the responsibility of the soul. 
It is, of course, responsible in its total personality. 
To divide it would be as absurd as to divide a man 
bodily before the law and say that his arms were 
answerable but his legs exempt. If the will were 
the responsible agent in the matter, then would the 



7 6 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



will be damned and the rest of the soul go free. 
In other words, the will is not answerable to God 
for what the soul does, but the soul is answerable 
to God for what the will does. Therefore, if there 
comes upon the soul a consciousness of aught that 
concerns God and that soul wills not to love God 
or to obey him, then are all the avenues of that soul 
closed by the will against God ; but if upon that 
consciousness there comes like an oblique ray of 
light some knowledge of God and that soul in its 
federal completeness wills to know more of God, 
then by that will the face of that soul turns toward 
God, and the light which shines through those 
avenues of consciousness is absolute knowledge of 
God. This is the attitude of the humble believer, 
usually described as the attitude of faith — we say 
usually so described, and very properly, too ; for 
assuredly no man's faith ever exceeded his will or 
consciousness in the premises. 

What, then, is Faith ? The mind is of a low grade 
which accepts Paul's description of faith by what it 
does, as a definition thereof. In the light of a defi- 
nition it is altogether proper to say that faith is 
neither " the substance of things hoped for" nor 
the evidence of things unseen." There is but one 
definition of faith, and that is by figure and com- 
parison — it is the muscular power of the soul. It is 
only in the imagination that the man who has ac- 
quired all the light of God can be separated from the 
man who has appropriated all the power of God. 

The lower grade of faith operating on man's ani- 
mal nature so energizes that nature as to make him 
a superior animal ; while its higher grade, belonging 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



77 



to his spiritual nature, from its very constitution 
takes hold on God, making its appropriated strength 
omnipotent. Here the philosopher has the solution 
of what to the unreflecting seems mysterious in 
faith. How simple, then, is salvation by faith ! 
How literal the figure of the descending rope or 
outstretched hand to the drowning man ! He is 
saved by the power of another, but not without the 
intervention of his muscular grip, which practically, 
in the premises of his saving, represents all the 
power that comes to save him, to which there is no 
necessary limit. Need any further argument be 
made to show that Faith belongs to the essential 
constitution of the soul ? 

From this investigation of faith we would turn to 
the consideration of such love as may be the orig- 
inal and peculiar quality of the soul, and we set out 
in quest of it, as did Columbus of a western conti- 
nent, assuming that there must be such. A distin- 
guished divine, Dr. J. \V. Lee, has said that love 
must be to the soul world what the sun's heat is to 
the world of matter. It can be said with great pro- 
priety, "The sun is heat." Does the apostle mean 
as literally " God is love ? " Is there an atmosphere 
of love surrounding God, a radiation of love pro- 
ceeding from him ? If a love that is not friendship, 
that proceeds from no natural source, the love of 
our spiritual brother, describes the relation of our 
being " in the light ; " if our being " in the light v is 
the condition in which alone the blood of Jesus Christ 
cleanseth from all sin (see I John i, 7; iv, 12), then 
what is that love? Whence does it come, where 
does it dwell, and what is its future? We have 



78 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



already shown that the highest love of which men 
are capable on the ground of congeniality, like the 
love of Damon and Pythias or of Jonathan and Da- 
vid, is manifestly of the soul ; but is it the soul's 
highest love ? We have no intimation that it 
reaches any of the divine demands or meets in any 
peculiar manner with divine approval. We could 
not do justice to the subject if we did not call at- 
tention to the unconscious but at the same time 
underlying appreciation in the minds of men of an 
affection beyond their experience. Let it but dawn 
upon the mind of anyone that a man has voluntarily 
laid down his life for others, and the heart will not 
beat for a moment and the breath cannot be drawn 
for an instant ; indeed, there are many men who 
could not stand on their feet under such an over- 
powering conviction. This can be nothing less than 
a soul-felt consciousness of a love existing in the soul, 
which is practically disavowed in the daily relations 
of life. This, then, is the love of Christ and the 
love of Christians for which, in our Churches, we 
feebly substitute the charm of association and the 
pride of esprit de corps. 

Here comes in Charity. Paul (i Cor. xiii) is as lit- 
tle appreciated as his so-called definition of faith. It 
is customary with theologians to call charity love 
and love charity. Then our love for Christ would be 
charity.(?) Then our love for our brother, better 
and nearer to God than we are, is charity.(?) 
Charity is this highest soul-love acting through 
goodness, native or acquired, toward that which is 
essentially unworthy. is the imitation of God's 
Christ-love to fallen humanity. Let us hear what 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 79 



the inspired apostle says. Without it the other 
gifts of the Holy Ghost, such as inspired language, 
human or prophetic, the understanding of mysteries 
and all knowledge, the exercise of all faith, the wid- 
est range of benevolence, or the most unflinching 
courage, would all be in vain — yes, as a ship with- 
out ballast or a tub without bottom. Then follows 
a list of its qualities exercised without or beyond 
desert ; take a sample : " beareth all things " (with- 
out justice), " hopeth all things " (without reason), 
" endureth all things " (without cause). Then fol- 
lows a declaration of the essential and enduring 
qualities and character of charity as compared with 
prophecy, which ceases in its fulfillment, tongues, 
in their accomplishment, knowledge, in more per- 
fected knowledge (see verses 8-12); and finally 
that it is greater than faith, which can save only our 
own soul, or hope, which is confined by its office to 
ourselves, in that it is the medium of sympathy 
among men, and the source of salvation from God 
through Christ. 

As the apostle has placed Hope among the tem- 
porary qualities of the soul we become at once in- 
terested, for it is the temporary rather than the eter- 
nal qualities with which, at present, we have to do. 
Hope is peculiar to man. The dog that has re- 
ceived his bone at the back door at 1 P. M. from 
day to day will be there expecting and desiring to 
receive it. This is the compound which philoso- 
phers say produces hope, a mingling of expectation 
and desire. But where is the dog's hope ? Do you 
think he hopes for a new kennel next winter with 
deeper straw, and two bones instead of one ? There 



8o 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



is no hope below the level of the human soul. Hope 
is not a passion. There are three evidences that it 
is not : it has no bodily corollary, it has no en- 
during relation, it has no place in the character 
of God. The relation of hope to the soul seems 
to be atmospheric or respiratory; hence " hope de- 
ferred maketh the heart sick." When you cut off a 
man's hope you cut off the oxygen of his soul, his 
spiritual circulation turns blue. The atmosphere 
which the soul will eternally breathe is adapted to it, 
but at present its atmosphere, not being congenial, 
is tempered with hope, as the diver draws his oxy- 
gen through a tube from the world above, that he 
may live till he gets back to his native air. There- 
fore the Christian's hope never disappoints him, be- 
cause it is "shed abroad" in his heart (soul) by the 
Holy Ghost which is given unto him. It is not born 
of desire, but simply quickens desire, and under the 
influences of this exhilaration Imagination, that 
short-lived artist of the soul, paints his innumerable 
pictures, of things that may or never shall be, that 
the soul may be beguiled from the consciousness of 
hunger and weariness and want and from the numb- 
ness of despair. But this is enough about Hope, 
which, though it dies upon the gangway plank be- 
tween life's rough sea and heaven's eternal shore, is 
till that time, in Christian hearts, u an anchor sure 
and steadfast, taking hold within the veil." 

And now there remains nothing within our lim- 
ited knowledge of the soul constitution which we 
desire to consider except the Conscience. We have 
heard many good things said of the conscience, 
some of the best by Sunday school scholars, nei- 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



8l 



ther cultivated nor matured. All have heretofore 
agreed that it was a faculty. The best explanations 
given of its essential character make it independent 
of the will and limited by the knowledge of the indi- 
vidual. All agree that it is God's legate and the rep- 
resentative of his government in the dominion of the 
soul, which is true, for it speaks loudly in proportion 
as that soul recognizes its fealty to the federal gov- 
ernment and becomes more of a witness and less 
of a monitor as that soul denies its allegiance. 
Thereupon the question arises, Can a faculty be a 
representative ? Can anything short of a personality 
be qualified to represent one government before 
another? All will agree that nothing short of a 
personality can be representative, and, moreover, 
that no ambassador could be qualified to represent 
another government in that country of which he is a 
citizen ; yet we say, " Conscience is a faculty of the 
soul, whose function is to represent God's govern- 
ment in the soul." 

As the idea of a distinctive personality in the 
conscience is beset with difficulties great and insu- 
perable we turn to the only solution that meets all 
the ends. The conscience is one of the operations 
of the Holy Ghost. Men say instantly, " O, that 
is impossible, for the conscience of some men will 
sanction that which is morally wrong." Gentle 
reader, beware of foregone conclusions ! Establish 
your premises before you determine your facts. 
Men said eighteen hundred years ago that Jesus 
was not the Son of God because he recognized pub- 
licans and sinners, which, they said, God would not 
do. They were sublimely satisfied with their own 
6 



82 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



false premises, dead to conscience and impervious to 
truth. Their error has given way before knowledge, 
which destroys prejudice, and this one with regard 
to the third person must in like manner give 
way. If the conscience be a personal envoy or fac- 
ulty divinely implanted the same difficulty arises, 
and you might say the sins which it does not to-day 
reprove it winks at, which is not true. The time 
for intelligent reproof of those sins has not come. 
The function of the conscience, be it what it may, 
is only to make present application of the knowledge 
now at hand to the morality of actions contemplated 
or remembered. If it be one of the offices of the 
Holy Spirit can he press some question of casuistry 
upon a soul beyond the existing capabilities of that 
soul or seek to convict of some sin where the appre- 
ciation of that sin does not, as yet, exist ? Can 
the Spirit of God be silly? Will anyone undertake 
to show that a man is answerable to God beyond his 
conscience? And if his conscience be the measure 
of his accountability who so well qualified to draw 
the line as he " who knoweth the mind of God ? " 
Does the Holy Ghost continue to operate on the 
heart of man in any of its functions after his con- 
science is dead ? or will his conscience alarm him 
after the Spirit is withdrawn ? No ; for conscience 
and the Holy Ghost are one. 

We had said that our inquiries would close with a 
word on conscience, but we cannot forbear to ask, 
Is sex an essential and eternal quality of the soul ? 
A lecturer could not better demonstrate the theories 
of Darwin than by introducing the discussion of 
sex into his lecture which immediately turns the 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



83 



male portion of his auditory into baboons ; and 
so inveterate is the degeneracy of the mind at this 
point that all consideration and discussion ends 
in one result. The obtunded perceptions lose all 
their delicacy of appreciation, and the instincts of 
the beast overbalance the judgment of the man. 
We, however, are not lecturing, but formulating 
truth to be sustained by the revelations of eternity. 

We would begin our argument with the creation. 
There is an intimation in the early history of man 
that, while all other ends might have been served 
on a low level, as they had been in the beasts for 
thousands of years, the supreme end of companion- 
ship could not thus be met. And then the method 
of woman's physical construction, not out of original 
elements (dust of the earth), but out of those 
already employed in the body of man — typified by 
the rib ; and while with greater delicacy and beauty 
and wonderful diversity, yet in everything comple- 
mentary to his own. But what then ? Is there the 
shadow of an intimation that her soul was made out 
of his soul ? The material vehicle was ready for the 
divinely instituted companionship ; but that longed- 
for affiliation of soul with soul to stimulate, to 
soothe, to satisfy, where was that? It remained for 
God again to breathe himself into human nostrils 
with the breath of life, and the mother of all future 
life became a living soul. This is the fulfillment 
of the Scripture, " Male and female created he 
them: , 

Now, we admit all God's foreknowledge in the 
premises, but it does not affect this part any more 
than other parts of the creative plan ; we get the 



8 4 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



best idea of his purposes in the original plan. If, 
then, there had been no sin and no death, Adam 
and his wife would have entered without any inter- 
vening period upon that higher state of being await- 
ing them, where for hundreds of years they would 
have walked, as in paradise, alone. Would this 
companionship have ever ceased or its ends have 
been entirely met short of an eternal adaptation ? 
This is the model ; sin perverted the plan, but in the 
regeneration, when Jesus shall have destroyed the 
works of the devil, shall we not receive all that we 
have lost ? 

In this connection we would make the end near 
the beginning, not undervaluing the subject or the 
argument. Marriage, which under the original plan 
would never have ceased to bind with indissoluble 
bands, has been broken to fragments by sin, but the 
holy mystery of the original union eternity alone 
will reveal. The beautiful tribute of Peter to woman, 
" giving honor unto the wife as unto the weaker 
(finer) vessel, " should never be forgotten by the 
Christian husband. The aspiration of our wives to 
get " nearer, nearer, nearer," which is the instinct 
of the soul, should brighten our hopes while we are 
" heirs together of the grace of life." The " rule " 
of the curse had well-nigh reduced her to the brute 
level, in which no fitness for man's companionship 
was found ; but the benign influence of our blessed 
Christianity brings her nearer and nearer to the 
condition of a helpmeet for what we ought to be 
rather than what we are. With inexpressible long- 
ings do we wait for the time when she who has 
made our natural life so bright shall scatter for us 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



85 



the flowers of light in the golden pathways of our 
eternal home ! 

The seat and power of the zvill in the soul con- 
stituting the groundwork of the judgment is the 
remaining proposition of the fifth heading, under 
which we have been so long. Here, then, we en- 
deavor to show on what, in equity, the accountabil- 
ity of man is made to turn. It is a grave question 
jealously maintained by God in his providence and 
in the judgment. No one need shrink from the 
investigation. If an event so tremendous as the 
judgment was devised and ordered to serve God's 
vindication in the premises, be sure that it is en- 
tirely in accordance with his will that we should 
thoroughly and to our own conviction pursue our 
inquiries. Indeed, to this end God said to his 
ancient people, "Come now, and let us reason to- 
gether." 

Looking broadly on the subject of salvation, we 
note first the limited number that meet the divine 
requirement, then the large number who with- 
stand God. Then we look to God and virtually 
say in our hearts, " Will you permit all these to be 
lost?" And while some boldly say, God will save 
them, and others still more impudently defy him, 
saying, " I would not believe in a God who did not/' 
others, safely intrenched in faith and practical right- 
eousness, openly subscribing to the equity of God's 
administration, secretly wonder if God will not in 
some way compel men to receive a salvation they 
do not seek, and deliver them from a ruin they 
have persistently sought. Yet all these will turn 
contemptuously away from a man who has suf- 



86 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



fered, never mind how much, for his folly, saying, 
4k He ought not to have been such a fool." 
Yet a temperance man would be glad to see the 
keeper of a saloon and the two bartenders, and the 
man who rented the house to them, and the man 
who was beaten there, and the man that beat him, 
and the old topers that were found there, and the 
swells that patronized the establishment, and a 
crowd of loafers who were hanging about it, and a 
lot of boys that were caught sneaking into it, and a 
half dozen of bums who ate their only lunches 
there, all put up together. Why? Because they 
were all doing wrong together, uniting in a common 
evil. A man belonging to any of the above classes, 
being identified with an army struggling for some 
principle of right, menaced or beset by a larger 
army, would seek to invent some means by which 
he could kill thousands or tens of thousands of 
these enemies, till all were annihilated, and waste no 
sympathy upon them. Why ? Because he believed 
that he was right and they were wrong. 

Let us see if we can get to the bottom of this 
thing. We are essentially and thoroughly depraved. 
If the consciousness of right is backed by a sense 
of personal injury, if we can get angry and fight 
for the right in our anger, how tremendously in 
earnest we are ! but if somebody else would vindi- 
cate the right, how slow, how captious, how out of 
harmony are we ! If we have no sinister interest 
one way or the other, how lethargic, how critical we 
are ! Take from behind our judiciary, our execu- 
tive, our legislatures, our police every sinister con- 
sideration and incentive, then what would you give 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



3/ 



for the laws that were framed or the measure of 
their execution ? What for police activity or judi- 
cial fidelity ? What amount of sympathy have you 
with the Executive of heaven? With what amount 
of simple fidelity would we execute the divine law 
upon the wicked or distribute the divine awards to 
the righteous without regard to sinister antipathies 
or personal prejudices ? What does your limited 
and perverted condition permit you to know of the 
divine administration and what it costs to destroy 
the works of the devil with the millions of the hu- 
man race voluntarily aiding and abetting him with 
all their might from age to age ? 

We talk of what it cost to redeem the race. If 
you had unselfishly given your unselfish son to die 
for men and they had derided the gift and mocked 
the giver you would have gathered all the Gatling 
guns of all earth's arsenals to sweep them from the 
face of nature. What is our position, then? That 
with all man's quasi indorsement of equity and jus- 
tice our depraved incapacity does not permit us to 
think right or feel right or act right. If they did 
we would think with God, feel with Christ, and act 
with the Holy Ghost. 

If, then, God can be so just in a judgment so se- 
vere let us consider the equitable groundwork of 
that judgment. Among the many exhibitions of 
depravity is the denying of that depravity itself. 
In like manner many err as to original sin, partly 
from a determination to look at it as a being, made 
answerable for Adam's sin ; yet the same man will 
turn round and entreat his neighbor not to contract 
constitutional disease, because he will transmit it to 



88 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR. 



his poor innocent children, and, living to see those 
children suffer, will say, k ' I told him so," regarding 
it just as much an inevitable result as a self-evident 
fact. However, I will not here discuss hereditary 
(original) sin, or that which proceeds from it, pre- 
disposition to sin (depravity) ; my mission is to the 
man who takes God's word as it is. 

Sin having entered into the moral constitution 
of man and depraved it, and the instinct of man's 
condition being to fly from God as it is the instinct 
of the young quail to fly from man, and the gravita- 
tion of his spiritual nature being inverted so that it 
tended always toward the earth and never toward 
God, the equities of his second probation must nec- 
essarily conform themselves to the circumstances 
of his new condition. Without dwelling upon the 
changes which have been wrought, as God gradually 
has brought man to his present degree of intelli- 
gence, we take the case as it is. 

The provision for the salvation of man is without 
limit. It was wrought in the soul of man's Re- 
deemer, and is unlimited according to the infinite 
dignity of the atonement wherein " the Prince of 
Life " became obedient unto death. This narrows 
down very greatly the question of equity, for all the 
equities are now involved in the application of the 
atonement. It is entirely unexceptionable that the 
purchaser of man's pardon should dictate the terms 
of his release, and the honor of God (who is jealous 
of his honor ) is involved in the perfect relations of 
the three parties, namely, the Ruler, the Redeemer, 
and the redeemed. The Ruler demands fealty, the 
Redeemer appreciation, and the redeemed impar- 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



8 9 



tiality. In the first epoch of the world God de- 
manded, through Christ, sacrifice. In the future 
era of the world God will demand, in Christ, fidel- 
ity. In the present (the only one with which we 
now propose to deal ) he demands faith. The ques- 
tion then is, How does salvation by faith meet the 
requirements of the triple relation ? First, fealty 
toward God ; faith, though voluntary as to the soul, 
grafts the soul on to God, and God is served and 
glorified in all the results of the living attachment. 
Secondly, appreciation of the Redeemer ; he was 
that personality of God by whom and in whose like- 
ness man was originally made, and who for his re- 
demption took upon himself his identical nature, 
and through whom the attachment to God is made. 
" No man cometh to the Father but by me;" tk I 
am the true vine," etc. The converted man honors 
the Son on his way to the Father. Thirdly, impar- 
tiality toward men ; all men are made equal before 
this governmental provision for conditional amnesty. 
Whatever the capacities of a child's soul may be it 
cannot by the law of its union develop beyond cer- 
tain natural qualifications. Therefore if the child 
should die in advance of this capacity it is non-re- 
sponsible and the relations of the atonement to its 
soul non-forfeitable. and so with all conditions of 
incapacity; but the normal soul can neither be 
maimed nor diseased ; it can always take hold, and, 
taking hold, no possible difference can be perceived 
between prince and peasant ; hence the equity of its 
impartiality is unimpeachable. 

So much for the fairness of the scheme and its ac- 
ceptable application to the righteous. Now a word 



9 o 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



as to the equity, extent, and justice of the plan in 
its application to the wicked. It is proper to say- 
in this connection that no demurrer of the wicked 
made in this world can be entertained as such in the 
court of heaven, but only such as are made by the 
wicked or on their behalf at the judgment bar; for 
any impertinent protest made here will come under 
the keen inquisition of that day in common with all 
deeds done in the body as to the underlying motives, 
but any demurrer made there will be considered in 
the abstract with reference to God's equity. 

None, we suppose, will doubt or deny that the 
teachings of God with regard to religion have been 
progressive from age to age. God's elect people, 
the Abrahamic race, were held answerable for the 
keeping of the law. They were the heirs of the prom- 
ises at birth, and when backslidden were simply ex- 
horted to return/ 4 cease to do evil, learn to do well ; " 
but the distinctive feature of the dispensation under 
which we live is the agency of the Holy Ghost. 
This agency is, in relation to our subject, double : 
first, to convict sinners of sin and lead them to 
Christ ; secondly, to establish and keep Christ in the 
hearts of believers and witness to the relation. We 
have already shown that what we call conscience is 
but one of the functions of the Holy Ghost. His 
first office is to convince men " of sin, of righteous- 
ness, and of judgment." His higher office is to 
guide Christ's people " into all truth " and " bring all 
things to their remembrance which Jesus has said 
unto men." In this relation the world cannot re- 
ceive him. 

Now we come to the sinner's accountability. We 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



91 



grant that he is depraved ; that his prejudices be- 
cloud his faculties and intercept his intelligence ; but 
whether he will or no the Holy Spirit is with him 
reproving for sin, demanding righteousness before 
God, and warning him of judgment to come. He 
does not, therefore, have to get the faith of Jesus 
Christ with difficulty. The difficulty with him is to 
keep it out. His conscience grows more tender 
with every admission, and can only be suppressed by 
long-continued determination of the will that his 
voice shall not be heard. We admit that no man 
could go unto the Father but by the drawings of 
the Spirit and by the "way" of Christ; but so far 
from that being difficult or dark to any man the re- 
verse is true. Every man being endowed in his soul 
with all needful capacity is earnestly persuaded by 
the Holy Ghost to avail himself of the ever-present 
opportunity, and he resists by bringing his will to 
bear in the exclusion of the Spirit, the closing of his 
spiritual avenues against further knowledge, and the 
removing of himself soul and body from such times, 
places, and influences as would bring him under 
further conviction. We admit that at the same 
time there is an adverse influence brought to bear 
upon the soul, the influence of Satan, the spirit 
of evil, of which the soul is just as conscious as of 
that which it resists. There is, indeed, an intuitive 
consciousness greater or less according to capacity, 
a conviction strong above the actual amount of 
knowledge in the premises that the two powers are 
waging war for the soul. And the conviction is strong 
in the degree in which it is dwelt upon, that Satan 
is the enemy of the soul and that God is the enemy 



9 2 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



of Satan and the friend of the soul, seeking to re- 
trieve the soul out of Satan's hands. Part of the 
delusion of every sinful man is that perhaps God 
will in the end succeed in saving his soul without 
effort or co-operation on his part. The man who 
loses his soul never proposed to lose it, but only de- 
layed to take part with God until the drop fell and 
his probation was ended. 

We now take a position which, to say the least 
of it, cannot be gainsaid. God so adjusts time, oppor- 
tunity, and persuasion to every soul that, whether 
it die early or live long, it shall have, as compared 
w 7 ith its accountability, an equal share of that on 
which its accountability is made to depend. 1 ' Are 
not my ways equal, saith the Lord?" What else 
can be the result of the judgment but the demon- 
stration of this fact? We set out to consider the 
equity, extent, and justice of the plan of salvation 
in all its phases with reference to the wicked as 
founded on what we have learned to know of the 
human soul. First, as to the equity. The sinner 
began under disadvantages, the inheritor of sin and 
the heir of death. Yet the grace of God was offered 
him free. The condition of faith was a constitu- 
tional endowment of his soul and the appropriative 
power of that faith so great that he was made by it 
equal to the demand of God, capable of unlimited 
progression, growing up into Christ his living head 
in all things. Secondly, as to extent, in which w T e 
embrace equality. The constitution of the soul is 
the best evidence of its universality. As the soul 
was made for religion — according to the argument 
we have been endeavoring to make — and religion 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



93 



was made for the soul, this universal adaption to 
each other shows a plan in which each was to have 
been co-extensive with the other. Equality is not 
as to religion, but as to judgment, each man's judg- 
ment being according to that he hath and not ac- 
cording to that he hath not, and the only absolute 
submission God's sovereignty demands is just there. 
God will absolutely make of the same clay one ves- 
sel to honor and another to dishonor, and he will 
not, in this life, at least, answer the question, "Why 
hast thou made me thus?" Albeit, we do believe 
the revelations of the spirit-world will satisfy every 
man that God chose wisely and kindly for him. 
Thirdly, as to justice, an argument seems superflu- 
ous. God made the soul and demanded fealty ; 
framed the law and demanded obedience ; offers 
clemency and punishes contempt. The death of 
the soul is the penalty of sin. because sin is of the 
soul, and the penalty is therefore duly related to the 
offense. Death is the sequence of sin in any case ; 
"sin worketh death." Sin was no novelty to the 
divine mind, nor yet death, when he ordained, lk The 
soul that sinneth, it shall die." It was all death any- 
how, as a penalty, a consequence, or a moral disease. 
In conclusion, it will be remembered that, while the 
life of the recovered soul is the gift of free grace in 
Jesus Christ, death is just as much the penalty in 
each individual who sins now as it was in Adam's 
case. " The wages of sin is death ; but the gift of God 
is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." 

And while we here end the question of justice we 
think it best to consider, in this connection, the 
nature of the penalty. 



94 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



What is the death of the soul ? No very consid- 
erable proportion of men ever understood death to 
mean the end, and in this land of Christian intel- 
ligence it is commonly spoken of as " the time of 
dissolution/' which to the simple means parting of 
the soul and body — this, and nothing more. But 
the speculative ask themselves, What becomes of 
the natural life, and into what element is the chemi- 
cally composed body resolved ? What is the state 
of the soul, and what the reasonable hope of the res- 
urrection ? The idea of annihilation is repugnant to 
every heart still operated upon by the Holy Ghost, 
but when the Spirit is withdrawn from the heart of 
the doomed man he then becomes a firm believer 
in annihilation, and is delighted with his discovery. 

We have dwelt already on the indissoluble and 
indestructible nature of the soul. It cannot die by 
the dissolution of its parts or the dissipation of its 
life any more than did the angelic beings who died 
before it lived. If you will read the original fiat 
thus, " In the day that thou eatest thereof thou 
[also] shalt surely die," you will have the precise 
thought of God, for millions who had defied him 
were already dead. When later on God said to the 
man and woman, who were already converted, the 
woman representing her seed and Satan his seed in 
the great issue that was canvassed there, " For dust 
thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return," surely 
no one can suppose that this was a reiteration of the 
penalty ; for these were redeemed already from 
the penalty. It was the Son who spake with them. 
They fell upon his merciful provision ; all they had 
lost they could recover through him. He spake as 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



95 



God now ; on the level to which sin had brought 
them they should remain during this world's pro- 
bation. The body had been reduced to the animal 
level, and, like the animal, it should die and go to 
dust again. 

What then was the penalty of a law made for the 
soul and violated in the soul ? The same as that 
visited upon spiritual beings who rebelled while 
as yet there was no law. Turn to Ezek. xviii, 4, 
where God, speaking through the prophet, first 
says, " All souls are mine ; as the soul of the 
father, so also the soul of the son is mine," to 
show that he is speaking of the separate soul of 
each, and then announces the primal law," " The 
soul that sinneth, it shall die." Common sense 
and daily observation teach us that natural death 
is not the penalty, for natural death comes alike 
to good and bad. We go back: what was the 
punishment of the rebellious angels ? They lost 
their first estate. What was their first estate ? Near- 
ness to God. What is their present condition by 
comparison? Exclusion from God. Where are the 
wicked represented as going? " Into outer dark- 
ness." What is God ? God is light. Where does 
he dwell ? " Dwelling in the light which no man can 
approach unto." What then is the condition of 
" outer darkness?" That of the greatest possible 
removal from God. Is there anything more ex- 
plicit as to their removal from God ? Yes ; " Who 
shall be punished w 7 ith everlasting destruction [re- 
moval] from the presence of the Lord, and from the 
glory of his power." Every word in this sentence 
conveys the idea of utter ruin, hopeless removal, 



96 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



bridgeless separation ; a destruction that is not de- 
stroyed, 

But is the punishment of the erring soul of man 
an original one, prepared in case he should sin, or 
after the fact ? Not at all. See Matt, xxv, 41, " De- 
part from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire pre- 
pared for the devil and his angels." This punish- 
ment was prepared for rebellious angels, ages, no 
doubt, before man was made or fell. Anything ap- 
pertaining to the soul was necessarily new, because 
no soul had previously existed, and the death of the 
soul was therefore a new thing in the universe of 
God. We cannot see that it was obliged to embrace 
the keen punishment of hell fire. The complicity 
with Satan may have determined the identification 
of man with the wicked spirits in the nature of his 
punishment ; on this, however, we would not insist, 
as clearer minds or further light may determine the 
question against us. One thing, however, is certain, 
the death of the soul, the penalty of sin, as things 
now stand, is identical with the punishment origi- 
nally devised for fallen spirits : " Ye serpents, ye 
generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damna- 
tion of hell?" (Matt, xxiii, 33; as also Rev. xiv, 
9-1 1.) We thus answer the general question : The 
death of the soul is the exclusion of that soul from 
God, which is " outer darkness, where there is wailing 
and gnashing of teeth," and the remorse and self- 
condemnation of that soul is the " worm that dieth 
not " and " the fire that is not quenched." 

It would seem fitting to close the consideration 
of the soul with its death, and if it were anything 
but the soul we would. But the most remarkable 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



97 



thing about the soul is not its death, but its life. 
We are wont to regard life as concrete, but yet we 
say, " full of life," or having " little life left ; " but of 
this illimitable and perhaps eternal expansibility 
of soul-life we can, in the nature of things, have but 
little conception. " I am the vine, ye are the 
branches.'' Nothing but moral death severs the 
connection of any soul with Christ. The trailing 
branch hanging over the wall may be depleted by 
abrasure, browsed upon by the cattle, trodden under 
foot of men ; but all possibilities are yet before 
it. God is the husbandman. The question of its 
fruitfulness is the question of its surroundings. The 
stem that passes from one hothouse to another 
bears nothing in transition, but once inside its 
branches hang with luscious fruit. The earthly 
gauge is high as compared with our surroundings, 
" The measure of the stature of the fullness of 
Christ ; M but in heaven this fruitage shall hang with 
" a far more and exceeding weight of glory/' 

Sixth division : The soul completed by the resump- 
tion of the body, and its final condition derived from 
its relation to Christ. This page will sometimes 
meet the eye of thinking men who have asked 
themselves the question, What can the soul gain 
by the resurrection of its body, having enjoyed 
heaven so long without it ? 

We derive conclusions inferential but strong from 
the constitu .ion of things. The body was not made 
to die, nor the soul to live without it. If the body 
had been of higher grade and nearer to the soul, so 
much worse would it have been when the body was 
involved in the ruin of the soul by sin ; but the 
7 



9 8 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



probationary body of man was purely animal, and 
nothing perished in it that was worth preserving. 
Nakedness, ever since the fall, has been a condition 
of delicacy, disadvantage, and dependence. God 
asked Adam what had brought him to the painful 
consciousness of his condition, and he sympathized 
with them in their embarrassment, for he made them 
clothing of skins, which the savage man still wears ; 
and a question must have arisen in the counsels 
of the Deity not recorded for us, What shall we do 
for these naked souls after death ? Some provision 
was evidently made, for Jesus says in regard to 
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, " God is not the God 
of the dead, but of the living." Their souls were 
God's, and where did he keep them ? Eighteen 
hundred years ago two men, practically such, hung 
each on a cross on Calvary, Jesus and the penitent 
thief, and Jesus said to the thief, " This day thou 
shalt be with me in paradise." It was not his 
broken-legged body that went there ; the last we 
hear of him that was left behind, so was that of 
Jesus. What was the sense of it then ? Thy soul shall 
be with my soul in paradise (some one will suggest 
hades; pardon us, the soul of the other thief 
would have been equally in your " hades "). Jesus 
asked the Father to receive his spirit, and it is 
hardly probable that he received it in hades. A 
further difficulty is suggested here, namely, that 
Jesus said to Mary Magdalene, thirty-six hours aft- 
erward, " Touch me not, for I have not yet ascended 
to my Father," which of course he had not since 
his resurrection, for that had just taken place ; but 
shall we therefore conclude that his disembodied 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



99 



soul had been wandering homeless for thirty-six 
hours ? 

The unsatisfied, not to say discontented, condi- 
tion of the naked soul is plainly indicated in Rev. 
vi, 9-1 1, when they cried, " How long, O Lord, 
holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our 
blood on them that dwell on the earth ? " The 
dependence of the soul is feelingly revealed in our 
Saviour's last prayer on the cross, " Father, into thy 
hands I commend my spirit." At this point we de- 
sire to say that the helplessness of the disembodied 
soul which caused heaven to open its doors for our 
entertainment and devolved upon angels the minis- 
try of divine hospitality for several thousand years 
is to be understood comparatively. The glorified 
body it is hereafter to wear will not be equal to the 
spirit that shall illumine it (how much less this body, 
by comparison called " vile ! ") ; but its dependency 
grows out of the fact that it is thrown out into the 
relations of a spirit not being a spirit, and without 
a body which is its natural covering and the essen- 
tial complement of its being. 

But as we are drawing our psychology from the 
Bible to the Bible will we go. Paul in his letter to 
the Corinthians (2 Cor. v, 1-10) gives us a summary 
of the whole matter, which runs on this wise : For 
we know that when dissolution takes place we have 
a better dwelling for the soul, devised of God, in 
heaven, and made eternal, and we groan for this 
earnestly, desiring to be clothed with our new body 
which is from heaven, if indeed it do not appear 
when we are divested of this body that our destiny 
is to be left naked. We groan under the weight of 



IOO 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



this body, not that we desire to lay it down and be 
unclothed till Jesus comes, but would rather wait 
until he comes that we might be clothed upon in 
the twinkling of an eye, that our mortality might 
be swallowed up of life. God has made us joint 
heirs of Jesus Christ in newness of life for this very 
thing, and given us the witness of the Spirit. We 
know that while we make our home in the body 
we are in that degree absent from the Lord, having 
to walk by faith, not being near enough to see him ; 
and we are so weary of the present and so confident 
of the future that we are willing to be absent from 
the body (though we be unclothed a while) that we 
may be present with the Lord, and hope, whether 
present or absent, that we may be accepted of him ; 
for we must all — whether we have been sometimes 
naked or ahvays clothed — appear before the judg- 
ment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the 
things done while he was in his body, whether they 
were good or bad ! 

The different truths of God's plan as we learn 
them from his word are found to dovetail into one 
another. Thus, if man had been intended for 
heaven (the commonly received opinion), then after 
death he would have had no further need for his body, 
for there is no use for it in heaven. But the fact of 
his body being raised and permanently restored to 
him shows conclusively that in the original plan he 
would never have laid his body down and never 
have gone to heaven at all. If, then, w r e find that 
in the plan of the restoration the body is worn only 
for a little while, it being subject to decay, the 
soul then having no body from one year to ten 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



IOI 



thousand years, then putting that body on again 
nevermore to lay it down, is not the ultimate con- 
dition its normal condition? And is not this nor- 
mal condition which it lost and then recovered its 
highest and best condition ? What does the Scrip- 
ture say ? (Matt, xxv, 34.) There may be some ob- 
scurity about this Scripture at large, but most read- 
ers will agree with us that this is the final judgment. 
If so, then these souls have been long in heaven and 
are not going back there but into a kingdom pre- 
pared for them from the foundation of the world, 
which was not heaven. Looking at it with this con- 
tracted view, the condition to which they are going 
with their resurrected bodies is better than their 
disembodied condition in heaven had been. But 
the truth is (and we cannot forbear to insert it here 
for the benefit of the thoughtful) a man who had 
died in the sixteenth century of the Christian era, 
had been a naked soul in heaven one thousand 
years, a re-embodied soul in the punitive ministry 
of Christ (" ever with the Lord from the second 
advent to the millennium, fifteen hundred years, in 
the royal service of the millennial rule one thousand 
years, at the judgment hears it announced that he 
shall inherit the kingdom prepared for him from the 
u foundation of the world " and " enter into life eter- 
nal !" So after a progressive period of thirty-five hun- 
dred years, the least important part of which was a 
thousand years' sojourn in heaven, he enters bodily 
into his actual ^ life and his unchangeable con- 
dition. We will not extend this argument further, 
but turn to our last heading and closing remarks. 
The soul derives its ultimate status from its relation 



102 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



to Christ. Vast as the subject is, who can doubt that 
from the sole recorded act of creation attributed to 
God the Father, when in antecedent eternity he 
made the glorious body of the Son, the visible 
image of his invisible person, to the time Paul 
calls the u end," when the- Son shall deliver all 
things into the hands of the Father, is the probation 
of the Son of God ? We would think of it and 
speak of it reverently, but the Book of God records 
two failures in the exercise of the Son's probation- 
ary prerogative and delegated power, the first and 
the last. About the last few questions will be 
raised ; all are ready to admit that Christ made the 
world for himself, the last creative act, and it failed, 
Satan having defeated the plan. But it will startle 
the world to know that his first creation was Satan, 
to be a companion to himself, and that failed. And 
how signal (and here we would speak reverently 
again) was that failure ! There are those who think 
that God could not know the mind of Satan, and 
therefore the defection of Adam which he procured 
was a surprise to God. We do not think so, and do 
not now stop to discuss the subject any more than 
to prove our principal premise with reference to 
Satan, but hurry on to our conclusion as to the re- 
lation of the soul to Christ. 

In the war that has been waged between Christ 
and Satan for nearly six thousand years the word 
of God reveals slow progress, speaking after the 
manner of men ; but only the ignorant and presum- 
ing say, Why does not Omnipotence settle it? 
The devout are satisfied with what God reveals. 
The prime feature thereof is the redemptory rela- 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. IO3 

tion of Christ ; and, again, the prime purpose of the 
redemptory relation, according to the word of God, 
is to " destroy the works of the devil. " The air, 
the earth, the water, the astronomical surroundings, 
the concomitant animal and vegetable life, are but 
the addenda. The plane of battle and the prize of vic- 
tory is the soul of man. The probationary relations 
of Christ in the premises to the absolute sovereignty 
of God are only complicated to the thoughtful, but 
to the skeptical they are confused ; a child, albeit, 
can understand that the Father can come to the 
rescue without any abatement of his demands upon 
the Son. Contrary to our custom, we omit the 
introduction of those Scriptures w T hose copious testi- 
mony we might employ; if you fall into harmony 
your own thought will suggest them ; if you are 
capricious from choice, of what avail would they be ? 
God has dealt fairly with " the accuser," evidently 
with reference to his own honor ; but yet, to use 
popular language, he has backed the Son in every 
struggle, all things being equal, and the explicit reve- 
lation is, " He will put all things under his feet." 

If then man was the last experiment, capping a 
series of creations of matter, and being made a 
material creature in the image of the gloriously 
embodied Christ, as he, in his visible glory, was the 
image of the invisible God, is it difficult to under- 
stand that he was an object of special interest to his 
Creator? He was a special object of interest to all 
heavenly beings for three reasons : First, that he 
was an experimental being, singular, unique, not 
only in that he was the climax of the material crea- 
tion, but further, because he had a nature like their 



104 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



own linked with the material nature of the globe he 
was to inhabit, and the curiously reproductive and 
chemically constructive quality of that which was to 
constitute his environment — who shall say that 
there were not things, even thus far, " which the 
angels desired to look into?" Secondly, that there 
was in the law of his being three principles in 
which the divine wisdom had revealed itself : that he 
was morally on probation, that his material sur- 
roundings were evolutionary or developing, and 
that his future, in any case involving his environ- 
ment, was predetermined by law to which he was 
amenable. Is it too much to say that an apprecia- 
tion of his relation in these things to the adminis- 
trative probation of " The Word " on one hand, and 
the punishable declension of fallen angels on the 
other, added great intensity to the interest with 
which they regarded him? Thirdly, that this was 
the last experiment, a separable patrimonial field of 
final endeavor, and that for this reason man had 
been made, not in the angelic but in the divine 
likeness, at the bottom of an inclined plane along 
and up which he could ascend to such nearness and 
identity with the divine Logos as heavenly inhab- 
itants could not enjoy, constituting a brotherhood 
in Christ and a kingdom of the Son. The subtile 
enemy overthrew all this, man fell, and the adminis- 
trative success of the Son was jeopardized for the 
last time and to the last degree. I have Scripture 
for saying that under those circumstances it " be- 
hooved Christ to suffer," and that his glory hinged 
upon it. And when he had suffered, then what? 
Were we put further off or drawn nearer to him ? 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



105 



What says the Scripture ? " For both he that 
sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of 
one ; for which cause he is not ashamed to call 
them brethren ; " u Having loved his own which were 
in the world, he loved them unto the end." 

What strange possibility now opened upon the 
astonished gaze of angels ! By methods that were 
simple when revealed (we do not desire to dwell 
upon the philosophy of the thing now) Jesus re- 
duced himself to the human level, revealing a fact 
astounding in heaven, it may be, that the Son of 
God and the children of men were of one inter- 
changeable nature ; for if down a given plane he 
could descend to their level, then at his option up 
that plane they could ascend to his level. Now 
the mystery begins to unfold itself. We know not 
what pain, in defeat or loss, may have been possible 
to him who was one with the Father — in our 
estate we cannot appreciate it; but the joy of re- 
demption opens out broadly to our conceptions. If 
Adam loved his new-made wife because she was 
" bone of his bone " with all his human nature, so 
Jesus loved his creature made in his likeness, 
" bone of his bone," with all his divine nature ; hence 
redeemed mankind (the Church) is represented as 
"the Lamb's wife." Now comes our argument. 
The soul was below Satan's level, below T angelic 
level, and could therefore die the soul-death. The 
body, being divorced from the soul by sin, not only 
could die, but must die, making the meaning of the 
decree very clear, " Dying, thou shalt die." The 
possibilities of the soul were from the first through 
development, those of the body through change. 



io6 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



The condemned soul forfeited its possibilities. The 
body of the condemned soul undergoes a " second 
death," absolute dissolution. The soul of the right- 
eous recovers all its possibilities through develop- 
ment, while the body acquires its immortality and 
immutability in reconstruction (" resurrection of 
life Now the nearness to Christ is manifest ; 
the last recovered and resurrected man is put be- 
yond the reach of Satan before death, the vantage 
ground on which he placed his fulcrum is abolished, 
while he is fairly defeated everywhere, prior to his 
punishment, to establish the probationary success of 
the Son — to vindicate his wisdom and his power. 
"Then cometh the end," which "end" is in some 
sense the beginning of eternity; up to this time we 
shall have passed from glory to glory, and then the 
whole spiritual body is stamped with the immuta- 
bility of Christ our living head. 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



107 



PICTURE II. 

(Chapter vi.) 

THE sixth chapter constitutes the second pic- 
ture. It has no other chronology than that 
produced by the relation of events which divide it 
into four parts : First, the going forth of Jesus 
Christ with power to redeem the world and conquer 
sin ; secondly, the evils resulting from the fall, 
namely, Avar, famine, and pestilence, to which is 
added casualty; thirdly, in the third and yet future 
period the souls of the recently martyred dead com- 
plain that they cannot put on bodies and take 
part in the present advancement of Christ's king- 
dom ; and fourthly and lastly, the day of God's 
wrath, immediately preceding the judgment, comes 
before him, reminding the reader forcibly of that 
misplaced passage, Matt, xxiv, 29-31. 

Now let us review. Mark, the Lamb opens the 
seals, and when the curtain rises the Lamb appears 
again, but in a different character ; in his ultimate 
and aggregated character of conqueror ; for what 
else can the warrior on the white horse represent 
but " the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin 
of the world,'' whose victories continue till " hell — 
the grave " — is robbed of its keys, and " death " of 
his victory ? And the reader will appreciate that the 
significance of this picture cannot be limited to this 
time or to that ; from eternity to eternity he is con- 



io8 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR 



queror. At the appropriate time he went forth ; 
" In the volume of the book it is written of me, Be- 
hold, I come; " at the appropriate time it will be 
said, "Thou hast taken unto thee thy great power, 
and hast reigned." He was crowned victor in this 
struggle before the world was, and " went forth con- 
quering and to conquer." The divine artist passes 
by the creation and fall, but there comes into the 
rehearsal scene, with startling realism, the embod- 
ied calamities that immediately succeed the fall. 
He of the u red horse M rode gently to the side of 
Cain, and whispered into his ear a suggestion hith- 
erto unheard, and when he rode away over the 
prostrate body of Abel he left on Cain's brow a fin- 
ger print, of which the world still speaks and shud- 
ders, and there "he took peace from the earth." 
But soon those iron hoofs were distinctly heard clat- 
tering along down the pathway of the ages. The 
sides of that horse were flecked with foam when he 
overtook Nimrod in the valley of the Euphrates. 
He had become " a mighty hunter [of men] before 
the Lord," a mighty shedder of human blood, when 
he of the red horse left him in his wake and rode 
down upon the coming ages. 

O, marvelous red horse ! thy cruel hoofs have 
dyed themselves in blood of untold millions ; have 
sounded on the marble floor of the palace; have 
leveled with the ground the rude walls of the cot- 
tage home. On Roman road, on English turnpike, 
those hoofs have struck fire, have buried deep in fal- 
low fields where stood the idle plow ; have dashed 
the blood of brother into brother's face or opened 
filial eyes on father's bloodstained hands. Over the 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



pleading hands of childhood, over the outstretched 
arms of motherhood, over the shrine of worship, 
over the cradle of peace, where is the place, or 
high, or low, where murder has not crept alone 
and wholesale murder gloried in the name of war ? 
Thank God, he rides more slowly now ; and yet is it 
not, must it not be true, that in the far, far era of 
another and yet distant period his hoofs shall print 
Millennial soil, nor cease till war and sin shall si- 
multaneously perish, as they have coincidently lived, 
and dying all, where death shall die, and, cast with 
hell into the lake, shall live no more in that " new 
earth wherein dwelleth righteousness." 

Again there sweeps across the moving picture 
another rider of the ages, gaunt famine, sepulchral 
famine, black as the starless midnight of man's cul- 
minating woe. But yet he stays not in any city till 
the jaws of death close on it. He crosses no conti- 
nent like fire on the prairie, leaving only blackness 
and ashes behind. God is sovereign, and he says ? 
"Hurt not the oil and the wine," and let the poor 
man, for whom the Lord ever careth, have his meas- 
ure of wheat or his measure of barley for his penny, 
and in the long run, and in the righting up of na- 
ture's equilibrium, His will is done. 

And as wave succeeds w T ave, so over the panorama 
glides another spectral foe, one who has no need of 
mace or battle-ax. The lipless grin turns mockingly 
into the face of beauty, and its cheek is soon like his. 
The miser counts his gains and the warrior polishes 
his blade, and he of the pale horse looks fixedly at 
them out of his " lackluster, eyeless holes," and the 
warrior lays down his sword, the gold slips from the 



I IO 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



miser's nerveless grasp, and they hasten to fall in 
behind and swell the bloated ranks of that vast but 
silent multitude. And so the leading woes that 
swiftly follow man's precipitate decline are briefly 
told. 

If we date the going forth of these in the morn- 
ing of time, then this revealing picture leaves out 
the world's noon and afternoon and gives us two 
closing scenes, that the whole may be included in 
the beginning and the end ; for the third and martial 
period of the world is passing by when the souls 
disembodied in martyrdom since the first resurrec- 
tion cry, " How long, O God, holy and true, dost 
thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that 
dwell on the earth?*' and they are bidden to wait 
till still later martyrs shall be ready to join them in the 
final resurrection of the just. And then, when the 
last experiment shall have been tried, there darkens 
down, at last, the night of time, when the slowly 
evolving kingdom of God comes in between the 
light of heaven and the remainder of all earthly 
things; and in that dread eclipse, amid the roar 
of separating elements, man's last worldly hope is 
sucked into the maelstrom, and the " last of hu- 
mankind," defying, not the universe, but God, goes 
down engulfed in ruin, sunk in endless woe. 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. in 



Abstract Treatise. 

THE COMING OF THE LORD. 

The Christian world slept over their crowning 
interest for a thousand years ; for half that period 
priestcraft hid the light of truth from the popular 
mind, and when in the providence of God men 
began again to read and hear his word, the Book 
of Revelation was as a vault close locked, the key 
for which was lost. And now that the door is ajar, 
the dim, uncertain, struggling light makes ghostly 
shadow's out of the darkness that still lingers there, 
and the cobwebbed corners are obscure and unex- 
plored, and from the imagination of the commen- 
tators proceed theories wild as the legends of the 
desert. 

But there is no reason now why we should not 
throw wide the doors and let even the simple come 
in — God's word was written for them — and brush 
away the cobwebs. Mystery is beneath the divine 
mind and a blot on human intelligence. Every 
corner of this vault of ages should be illumined as 
with calcium light, and every man invited to enter 
and contend for the conditional blessing written 
over its entrance, " Blessed is he that readeth, and 
they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep 
those things which are written therein. " So much 
for a book beginning, in its essentiality, with the 
second coming of Christ and containing, more than 
once, the oft-reiterated mistake of the apostles, 
namely, " The coming of the Lord draweth nigh M 



112 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



(James v, 8) ; of which mistake we now desire to 
speak. 

Jesus never told the disciples " the coming of 
the Lord draweth nigh/' any more than he told the 
Thessalonians " the day of the Lord is at hand ; " 
on the contrary, he said, "Watch, for ye know not 
what hour your Lord cometh.' , He never said there 
should be such and such signs whereby they might 
know that " the time is short " (i Cor. vii, 29), or de- 
termine "that it is the last time " (1 Peter ii, 18), or 
say, "Ye see the day approaching " (Heb. x, 25). 
Paul had no authority to give the Thessalonians an 
epitome of intervening things containing these 
words, " For the mystery of iniquity doth already 
work; only he who now letteth will let, till he be 
taken out of the w r ay " (probably meaning himself), 
with an intimation that all should be completed 
and the "day of Christ" witnessed by men then 
living. Compare 2 Thess. iii, 5, with 1 Thess. iv, 17. 
Unfortunately while he sought to correct the mis- 
takes of others he made a serious one himself. 

The Holy Ghost never inspired men to say, " The 
end of all things is at hand " (1 Peter iv, 7, or Phil. 
iv* 5)9 f° r Jesus had emphatically said (and the per- 
sons of the Trinity never differ), " Of that day and 
hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, 
but my Father only ' ' (Matt, xxiv, 36), and Mark adds 
" neither the Son/' for he spoke from his human 
standpoint, and doubtless Peter's recollection was 
correct. John seems to have fallen into this error 
in his epistles, but not necessarily in his Revelation, 
for in the first instance (Rev. ii, 5, or iii, 11) the 
words were spoken by Jesus to John and provi- 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



113 



dentially fulfilled as spoken. In the second exam- 
ple (xxii, 7) jesus speaks again, but in the rehears- 
ive presentation of a period as yet removed, per- 
haps, five thousand years in the future, which, when 
actually spoken, will be presently true. And when 
John adds his valedictory — if indeed it be his — to 
the record of his vision he says, " He which testifieth 
these things saith, Surely I come quickly." This 
looks very like falling into the error under consider- 
ation, but he added, " Amen. Even so, come, Lord 
Jesus," which may be rather a moral sentiment 
than an intellectual conviction. 

Of what we have written this is the substance. 
The apostles were all in error as to the early com- 
ing of Christ ; but this in no wise invalidates their 
universal inspiration, to which there was no ex- 
ception, save as God said there was, or they ad- 
mitted it. We have one example of each : first, 
that under consideration, upon which we have al- 
ready dwelt at some length ; secondly, that in the 
mind of Paul growing out of it (1 Cor. vii, 39, 40), 
in which he says in conclusion, " I think also, that 
I have the Spirit of God," leaving the reader free to 
doubt, and we all with one consent, in the light of 
subsequent events, think otherwise. 

We ought, perhaps, to pause here and say a word 
in refutation of a silly theory presented, in different 
forms, by many Adventists, who, because they can- 
not rightly interpret the prophetic chronology of 
Daniel, have manufactured a theory to supply the 
deficiency, namely, that God, seeing that his origi- 
nal plan would not, from some unforeseen circum- 
stances, work well, determined to break off at a 
8 



114 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



given point and suspend definitely or indefinitely, 
but after a while to resume the count, and so fulfill 
the purpose and the prophecy. A more convenient 
plan — especially for an ignorant interpreter of proph- 
ecy — cannot be imagined, as it will adapt any 
chronology to all prophecy. Indeed, it is of such 
universal application we wonder that business men 
do not borrow a suggestion. Suppose, for example, 
Merchant A. has borrowed from his mercantile 
friend, B., five hundred dollars for sixty days, and 
finds before half the time runs out that he cannot 
pay it at the expiration of sixty days; literally, he, 
therefore, at the end of thirty days ceases to count 
for a period of six months ; then, finding that he is 
again able to meet his obligations, resumes the count 
and pays the money at the expiration of sixty days, 
involving an interregnum of six months — how would 
that work ? It would be in vain for the lender to 
complain of the borrower, for he could do as these 
men make the Lord do — throw himself back on his 
dignity or plead the intervention of unforeseen cir- 
cumstances not under his control. The writer 
thinks the expositor of Scripture ought to be as 
honest as any other man, and, if he cannot explain, 
neither dodge nor invent, but honestly confess his 
ignorance. 

We now proceed to consider the absolute cer- 
tainty of our Saviour's return — when and how. Of 
the rich and full prophecy of the Old Testament we 
give only two or three specimens, premising that 
Old Testament prophecy on the first appearing of 
Christ (second advent) is limited ; on his final ap- 
pearing (separately considered) equally so ; but on 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 1 1 5 



the general fact, in connection with his millennial 
reign, or the destruction of his enemies, varied and 
copious. The first to which we would call atten- 
tion is found in Isa. lxii, 1 1, " Behold, the Lord hath 
proclaimed unto the end of the world, Say ye to the 
daughter of Zion, Behold, thy salvation cometh; be- 
hold, his reward is with him, and his work before 
him." To ascertain to whom the pronoun applies 
seethe first verse of the following chapter, "Who 
is this that cometh from Edom?" etc., and satisfy 
yourself that it is He who in lix, 20, is called 
"Redeemer," and in lxiii, 8, "Saviour." A careful 
reading of the whole chapter (lxii) in this connec- 
tion will help to make it clear. 

The next will be found in Isa. lxvi, 5 : " Hear 
the word of the Lord, ye that tremble at his word ; 
Your brethren that hated you, that cast you out for 
my name's sake, said, Let the Lord be glorified : but 
he shall appear to your joy, and they shall be 
ashamed." If you have any doubt as to the appli- 
cation of this pronoun, to whom and in what con- 
nection, compare verse 16 with Rev. xix, 21 ; xx, 
9 ; verse 22 with Rev. xxi, 1 ; verse 24 with Rev. 
xix, 17, 18. 

The next to which I would call your attention is 
Dan. vii, 13, 14. This is self-evident and beyond 
cavil. And lastly Malachi closes his book as Isaiah 
does with a partial description of the end, " The 
day [that] cometh," and says (chap, iv, 2), "But 
unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of right- 
eousness arise with healing in his wings," etc. And 
so I have culled examples out of the prophetic 
books from the beginning and the middle and the end. 



Il6 THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 

These lamps of truth were hung in the eastern hori- 
zon like the morning star to brighten with the com- 
ing dawn, and I have taken you back, dear reader, 
only that you might look at them as they shone 
upon the world when Jesus said of all such Scrip- 
tures, "They are they which testify of me," 

From these we turn to the clear, explicit state- 
ments of the New Testament, whch by comparison 
seem as meridian to dawn, beginning with the words 
of Jesus himself (Matt, xxiv.) With the wretched 
transpositions of this Scripture, beautifully consist- 
ent when properly arranged, we have nothing to 
do at present ; with the first division of the apostles' 
threefold question, nothing ; with his answer to the 
third part thereof, nothing; but only with the 
second, " What shall be the sign of thy coming? " 
The direct answer to this question, though out of 
place, will be readily found between the thirty-sixth 
and forty-first verses, " Of that day and hour know- 
eth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but the 
Father only." Then follows the vivid comparison 
to Noah and the flood, one family ready and wait- 
ing, the rest " eating and drinking," and making 
merry — " So shall also the coming of the Son of man 
be." Then follows the business of life from which 
" one is taken and the other left." The farmer 
stops his plow in the furrow to gaze astonished on 
"the coming of the Son of man." The millstone 
is turning, the factory wheel is turning, the locomo- 
tive wheel is turning. The trumpet sounds (" for the 
trumpet shall sound"), and the woman at her work, 
the miller in the mill, the traveler on the train, the 
visitor from the carriage, gaze, alike astonished, on 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



117 



"the coming of the Son of man/' The figure 
changes. 'Tis midnight. The wise and foolish vir- 
gins together sleep — " There shall be two in one 
bed ; " a cry is made, " Behold, the bridegroom Com- 
eth ! " " For the Lord himself shall descend from 
heaven with a shout," and "the one shall be taken 
and the other left." " Which is a manifest token 
of the righteous judgment of God," seeing it is a 
righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation 
to them that trouble you, and to you who are trou- 
bled rest, rest with us when the Lord Jesus shall be 
"revealed from heaven with his mighty angels," 
" when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, 
and to be admired in all them that believe in that 
day." " Think it not strange concerning the fiery 
trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing 
happened unto you : but rejoice, inasmuch as ye 
are partakers of Christ's sufferings ; that when his 
glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with 
exceeding joy." So discourses "an elder" who 
was " also a partaker of the glory that shall be 
revealed ; " in other words, who saw, " when he was 
with him in the holy mount," the transfigurative 
representation of the " majesty" and "glory that 
shall [yet] be revealed." And he further says, 
" Commit the keeping of [your] souls to him in well 
doing as unfco a faithful Creator" Christ Jesus, by 
whom we were created and in whom we were re- 
created unto good works. And Paul adds, " But I 
would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, con- 
cerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, 
even as others which have no hope. For if we be- 
lieve that Jesus died and rose again, even so them 



u8 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. 
For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, 
that we which are alive and remain unto the coming 
of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. 
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven 
with a shout : . . . and the dead in Christ shall rise 
first : then we which are alive and remain shall be 
caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet 
the Lord in the air : and so shall we ever be with 
the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with 
these words. . . . For God hath not appointed us 
to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus 
Christ who died for us, that, whether we wake or 
sleep [be alive or dead], we should live together 
with him." "And I pray God your whole spirit 
and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the 
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ' 1 " Faithful is he 
that calleth you, who also will do it." " Wherefore 
also we pray always for you that our God would 
count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the 
good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of 
faith with power." " Therefore, brethren, stand fast, 
and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, 
whether byword, or our epistle," " and the Lord di- 
rect your hearts into the love of God, and into the 
patient waiting for Christ." The above is derived 
from the Epistle to the Thessalonians, and thus 
unintentionally we have been led to link so much 
of apostolic prophecy upon the Master's own words. 
We have avoided the Apocalypse lest we should be 
accused of dealing in doubtful Scriptures or fore- 
gone conclusions, but with an exhortation written 
by the author thereof, in still later years it is said, 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. I 19 



as with a moral, we close, " And now, little children, 
abide in him ; that, when he shall appear, we may 
have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at 
his coming" (1 John ii, 28). 

Little more remains to be said, as we are not 
dealing with the circumstances w T hich indicate or 
attend his coming, nor with any speculations as to 
" times and seasons," "signs of the times," etc. 
Nevertheless we have committed ourselves as to 
" when " and " how." 

We sympathize with those who see philosophical 
reasons for his not coming yet, who say that the re- 
sources of the epoch have not been exhausted nor 
its obvious purposes consummated. We have noth- 
ing to say in that line, however, but only that in the 
end of this epoch he will come, and that his coming 
will be the introduction of the next. We believe 
that the prophetic tongue has curiously and ob- 
scurely declared the years that God has meted out 
till the time of the end, but yet that when men 
least expect it he will come " like a thief in the 
night." Perhaps we should qualify and say most 
men, for he has said to the wise, " Be ye also ready," 
but of the whole has asked the question, " Never- 
theless, when the Son of man cometh, shall he find 
faith on the earth ? " 

There remains but one question — How? Under 
this head we do not desire to say much in this con- 
nection, especially as from a resurrection point of 
view we will elsewhere consider it, and upon the cir- 
cumstantiality of the succeeding epoch we have al- 
ready declined to dwell. There is left, therefore, but 
one thing, the literal, physical, psychical conditions. 



120 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



Upon this important subject the Scriptures are very 
clear: "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up 
into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up 
from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner 
as you have seen him go into heaven " (Acts i, n). 
The body of Jesus — " a body hast thou prepared 
me " — was subject to the laws of matter to the de- 
gree of its identity with our own, but was superior 
to those laws from the fact that it was in the hands 
of its own Creator, a special production for a specific 
purpose. Let us take the two leading propositions 
of the angel's declaration and analyze them : first, 
as to identity, "this same Jesus." We said the lit- 
eral, physical, psychical conditions ; these determine 
and constitute the identity. First, literal : the eyes 
of the two disciples at Emmaus'" were holden," oth- 
erwise they would have known him. He proved 
to them from the Scriptures the things concerning 
himself, thereby laying claim to an unaffected indi- 
viduality, and when their eyes were loosed they 
knew him as the identical Jesus with whom they 
had been associated three days before. Physical: 
Thomas, the materialist, would not believe, he 
said, unless he could handle his body. So Jesus 
said to him, " Reach hither thy finger, and behold 
my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it 
into my side ; and be not faithless, but believing. ,, 
To all of them he said, " It is I myself : handle me, 
and see ; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye 
see me have." This is as decisive as his own testi- 
mony can make it. Psychical: I might call your 
attention, reader, to the deep and inward sufferings 
of the garden : " My soul is exceeding sorrowful 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 12 1 



even unto death." The sorrow was in his soul, the 
mortality in his body. I might call your attention 
to the philosophy of the atonement, its bei?ig 
zvrought in the soul: " Thou hast made his soul an 
offering for sin ; " " He was delivered for our offenses 
and was raised again for our justification." But I 
will rest this case on one proposition only : " He shall 
see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied." The 
travail was, manifestly, before his death, the result 
seen after his death; therefore his soul lives on. 

The second and last proposition we desire to 
weigh is, "in like manner." We believe the glori- 
ous body of the prehistoric Son of God became 
the humble body of his nativity compared to " a 
root out of dry ground," and that the " form of a 
servant" and "the likeness of sinful flesh" took 
upon itself again in due time " the glory [bodily] 
that [he] had with the Father before the world 
was;" but that is neither here nor there. He laid 
aside that glory to come to live, to die, and to de- 
part ; he will lay it aside again to come, to call, to 
linger and receive. The faint outglistering of his 
glory on " the holy mount " shows us what he and 
we shall see when we shall go to him and reign 
with him; the " like manner" shows us what he 
condescended to be when he came to us, and what 
he will condescend to be when he comes for us, 
and will continue to be till, changed from glory to 
glory, we take on his image and become adapted 
to his environments, that " where he is, there we may 
be also." 



122 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



PICTURE III. 

(Chapter vii.) 

THE seventh chapter constitutes a complete 
picture, third in the series. From the history 
of those plagues which swiftly followed the fall of 
man, in fact, were born out of it and of it, which 
bridged the flood and sought a place for themselves 
in the family of Noah, which rode swift or slow or 
loud or noiselessly again with the sons of men, the 
apostle is invited to turn and view another picture, 
the antithetical one, the salvation provided for 
the human race through a certain process of elec- 
tion. First, by the selection of a peculiar people, 
of whom a definite number are represented as being 
saved, in this panorama. And here let me say that 
any misarrangement of the names matters very little 
to the honest student, as John evidently means 
twelve thousand from each of the twelve tribes, 
making one hundred and forty-four thousand. 
Secondly, by the providential test and opportunity 
afforded to those who came up out of great tribu- 
lation, into w T hich the providence of God had brought 
them — " Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime 
receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus 
evil things ; " " Whom the Lord loveth he chasten- 
eth" — who are therefore before the throne as the 
result of tribulation sent by God and improved by 
grace ; for if their salvation or award be not greater 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



123 



by comparison than that which is general to the 
hosts of the redeemed, then language is robbed of 
its force and the propriety of the place assigned to 
them in the picture to be questioned on all natural 
principles. Of this, however — that is, of persecution 
in general, and its effects in particular upon the in- 
dividual — we may speak hereafter. Thirdly, by his 
election of those in consideration of their washing 
their robes and making them white in his blood, 
under those circumstances of tribulation, to a pecul- 
iar nearness and special personal ministration ; for 
if the declarations accompanying this picture do not 
mean this, then verbs are robbed of their force and 
nouns of their significance. 

The student of the Apocalypse must begin at 
once to discipline his mind away from consecutive- 
ness. The first picture contains no history, covers 
no epoch, but simply celebrates an era, and this 
picture, in the particularities of its representations, 
locates itself. The "Lamb" had been slain, the 
second fruits of the resurrection, " them that (were) 
his at his coming," were gathered around him — he 
had been for them. The divine pageant, like a Ro- 
man triumph, celebrates the conquests of the past, 
only to be introductory to those which are to follow. 

The second picture scans the whole of the " Son's " 
victories from man's fall to the end of his redemp- 
tion — we may say, from the creation of the w 7 orld 
to the end of time. So the present picture has no 
consecutive chronology, but like, the first — as further 
investigation will show you — is a glorious era intro- 
ductory to the millennial period, in particular, as the 
first was introductory to the whole. 



124 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



Abstract Treatise. 

TRIBULATION, OR THE USES OF ADVERSITY. 

We divide the advantages accruing to the suffer- 
ers of any and all forms of adversity sent or sancti- 
fied by God under four heads, humility \ dependency, 
trust, and spirituality. The adversity of which we 
speak begins with disappointment and proceeds by 
way of trial to tribulation. Here again we pause to 
divide and explain : disappointment may or may 
not be of God, and if not of God may or may not 
be overruled of God to serve his purposes. Un- 
sanctified, it leads to hardness and bitterness ; being 
recognized as from God, it is productive of the gra- 
cious harvest we have mentioned above. Trials, 
mistranslated " temptations M in the Scriptures, are 
altogether of God, and are preparatory in the school 
of Christ to the advancement of the child of grace, 
and to still further promotion in the army of the 
cross. For this reason " the captain of [our] sal- 
vation was made perfect through sufferings," and 
" tried [he could not be tempted] in all points like as 
we [Christians] are." He was our example. He suf- 
fered disappointment in poverty, privation, and the 
want of appreciation, and learned humility under the 
first lesson — " For I am meek and lowly in spirit." 
He was tried at the outset by an offer of aid which 
his conscience w r ould not recognize, and rejected it. 
He was tried all through life by the opposition or 
infidelity of men and the withholding of such in- 
dorsement from above as his human nature would 



THE APOCALYPSE 



EXPLAINED. 



125 



prompt him to desire. The disciples voiced the 
human sentiment when they said, " Lord, wilt thou 
that we command fire to come down from heaven 
and consume them?" " He was reviled, but he 
reviled not again ; " he suffered, but he threatened 
not ; " a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." 
And he was tried in the close of his life by a di- 
vinely imperative demand that he should drink the 
cup from which his human soul had shrank so much. 
He drank it, for " he [had] learned obedience by 
the things which he suffered." And in his last 
utterances on the cross, " My God, why hast thou 
forsaken me?" " Father, into thy hands I com- 
mend my spirit," we find the disposition of humble 
dependency on God. 

Tribulation as applied to Jesus seems to startle 
us; but why? If the human body which he took 
upon himself developed from childhood to manhood, 
did not the human soul which appertained to it in 
like manner develop? Does not his being touched 
with a feeling of our infirmities, that he might know 
how to succor them that are tempted, convey the 
idea of some kind of progressiveness consistent 
with the divine plan, and essential sinlessness of 
Christ's nature? The highest point of moral ele- 
vation which he reached was when in Gethsemane 
he determined to drink the cup which might not 
pass from him ; and to this point he was brought by 
sufferings such as made his " soul exceeding sorrow- 
ful, even unto death." " For it became him for 
whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in 
bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain 
of their salvation [himself] perfect through suffer- 



126 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



ings." " It behooved him to be made like unto his 
brethren. . . . For in that he himself hath suffered 
being [tried], he is able to succor them that are 
[tried]." " Wherefore God hath highly exalted him, 
and given him a name which is above every name. 
. . . And that every tongue should confess that Jesus 
Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." 

Tribulation is distinct from trial ; it consists of 
two parts, that which God sends for purposes of his 
own, and that which he cannot prevent but seeks to 
modify and overrule to the same end. We will 
present them separately. First, that which God 
sends. The case of Job is unique. He was tried 
upon Satan's challenge for the sole purpose of vindi- 
cation andmet the confidence of God fully — " sinned 
not," but said, " Though he slay me, yet will I trust 
in him." Joseph and Moses had each a long and se- 
vere discipline in the training school of adversity, it 
being preparatory rather than corrective, disciplinary, 
and not punitive. Paul experienced severe tribula- 
tion resultant from his ardent zeal, his peculiar tem- 
perament, and his special call, but wonderfully pro- 
ductive of the fruits under consideration. David 
made God mingle much punishment with what 
was laid upon him ; nevertheless God kindly made it 
serve the purest purposes of tribulation ; he only of 
all his age prophesied of Christ and sang of heaven. 

Of the second class two notable examples are 
found in Elijah, the favorite of God, and John, the 
favorite of Christ. These men were worthy of all 
success and acceptability, yet their persecutions pre- 
ponderated. Therefore it is reserved for them to have 
grand functions and magnificent success in a still 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 127 



future period of the world's history. Peter was an- 
other example ; he could not be withheld from 
Satan's hand, but Jesus prayed for him that his faith 
might not fail. Keen were his sufferings, deep his 
humiliation, but the diamonds will sparkle in his 
martyr's crown like dewdrops on the daisy, modest 
in its position but upright in its bearing. Our text 
deals only with this aspect of the question, M These 
are they which come out of great tribulation, and 
have [therein] washed their robes and made them 
white in the [ever-present] blood of the Lamb." 

Disappointment is corrective, trial tentative, trib- 
ulation promotive. A Christian is on a low level 
when he can be disappointed ; no man was ever 
brought into that condition by his want of success in 
the things of God ; the keenness of its edge is always 
in proportion to the amount of self-love involved. 

Trial, called in Rom. v, 3, " tribulation," is, on 
the other hand, the exercise and therefore the devel- 
opment of spiritual muscle (which is faith), and 
" worketh [produceth] patience." Patience in 
turn worketh (results in) experience, and faith, op- 
erating patiently under tribulation (or trial), be- 
comes an aggregated experimental knowledge in 
which the blessed child of God " that endureth 
[trial] " finds that he is never tried " above that he 
is able," " that his trials are such as are common to 
man," and " that God will with the trial also make 
a way to escape." This becomes the reasonable 
groundwork of his "hope," a hope that brings 
no disappointment, a hope that " maketh not 
ashamed." Then he resolves " to quit himself like a 
man," to " be strong in the Lord, and in the power 



128 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



of his might ; M to crown the work of grace in his 
heart by marshaling all the forces of his soul, to war 
not only against "flesh and blood," " but against 
principalities, against powers, against the rulers of 
the darkness of this world, against spiritual wicked- 
ness in high places." The process has gradually 
changed him from an enthusiastic recruit to a tried 
veteran in the army of the cross, and he now resolves 
to take unto himself " the whole armor of God, 
that he may be able to withstand in the evil day, 
and having done all, to stand" 

" Tribulation M cannot come, as trial may, from the 
devil, or any other adverse agency, unwittingly pro- 
moting the divine ends; tribulation per se must be 
administered practically by the hand of the Master. 
Its etymology changes the figure ; it is the proc- 
ess by which the husbandman makes good things 
better. It is the threshing process, it presupposes 
ripeness, roundness, fullness, value ; it would be a 
waste of time and care if there were no wheat there 
to repay the trouble. The destruction of wheat 
would lead to the presumption of enmity or theft, 
but the threshing indicates ownership, and owner- 
ship presupposes plowing, planting, irrigating, 
reaping, conveying, and preserving ; while the be- 
stowment of the present labor indicates future value, 
life, health, strength, enrichment, and enlargement, 
complacency and perpetuity, " much good laid up 
for many years." Plainly, the care which God thus 
bestows upon a soul indicates his love for that soul 
made in his image, preserved in his providence, re- 
deemed by his Son, transformed by his Spirit, and 
involving his glory from all past time to all future 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 1 29 



eternity. Disappointment severs the relations on 
which we lean too much and helps to bring the line 
of moral gravity safely within the spiritual base. 
Trial teaches us to be intrenched at all times, to be 
watchful of our outposts, to keep our lines unbroken, 
and all our moral forces well in hand. Tribulation 
removes that which is effete, abnormal, and bulky 
beyond value. The first advantage the Christian 
secures by " laying aside every weight " lies in the 
anticipation of God's last resort, and man's precau- 
tion supersedes God's tribulation. 

We now go back to enlarge and exemplify. We 
request you, reader, to bear in mind that our text is, 
u These are they which came out of great tribula- 
tion, and have washed their robes, and made them 
white in the blood of the Lamb." Disappointment, 
in the providence of God, may be the humiliation 
of overthrow — " Even for this same purpose have I 
raised thee [Pharaoh] up." Trial may be the de- 
rision of presumption — " I also will laugh at your 
calamity ; I will mock when your fear cometh ; " 
" For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose 
the fear of the Lord : . . . therefore shall they eat of 
the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their 
own devices." Tribulation may be ultimate de- 
struction where all is beaten small alike and scattered 
to the winds of heaven — " Thou didst thresh the hea- 
then in anger ; " " On whomsoever [this stone] shall 
fall, it will grind him to powder." But we are dealing 
only with that " chastisement " which proves that 
we are not bastards, but sons, and which, through 
submission and concurrence on our part, " afterward 

yieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness unto 
9 



13° 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



them which are exercised thereby." With this 
understanding we return to the first division of our 
subject. 

Disappointment ; its range is very wide. Job 
was disappointed when he found that he could not 
die in the nest he had prepared for himself. Paul 
was disappointed when he found " the thorn in the 
flesh " could not be withdrawn. Jesus was disap- 
pointed when he found the cup might not pass 
from him except he drank it. The first was purely 
selfish, but unexceptionable ; the second mingled 
with an intelligent but mistaken purpose of conse- 
cration ; the third a soulfelt desire to escape such 
psychical sufferings as no human intelligence could 
appreciate, if the end might be otherwise secured. 

Disappointment, as pertaining to our subject, is 
the pruning process in the vineyard of the Lord, 
the training of the Christian athlete in the school 
of Christ. If he would bear fruit in his lower 
branches, too near the ground, " of the earth, 
earthy/' the forecasting wisdom of God cuts them 
away. If in the pride of capacity he would bear 
much fruit marred with love of self and grow top- 
heavy in self-righteousness, then a mercifully con- 
siderate hand takes a branch here and there till his 
safety is secured. If the well-intentioned man- has 
too much carnal weight, in the training school of 
disappointment it must be reduced that he may 
" endure hardness as a good soldier." If a diet of 
worldly complacency be too stimulating to his 
grosser nature, the supply must be stinted by dis- 
appointment (very bitter sometimes), lest " Jeshurun 
wax fat and kick." It is a rare thing for a man 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. I 3 I 



sweating under a load of worldly disappointment 
and care to realize that the infinite wisdom of God 
is reducing him that he may " run with diligence 
the race set before him 99 and " lay hold on eternal 
life." It is not according to nature that his " chas- 
tisement ' 9 by losses should be otherwise than 
" grievous ;" but " the Master," who has led him by 
a way he has not known, says in his great heart, 
" Blessed are the meek : for they shall inherit the 
earth ; " " Blessed are the poor in spirit : for theirs is 
the kingdom of heaven." And the angel shall 
sometime explain, saying, "This is one of those souls 
which came out of great tribulation, having washed 
his robes and made them white in the blood of the 
Lamb ; therefore is he before the throne of God, 
to serve him day and night in his temple : and he 
that sitteth on the throne shall dwell with him. 
He shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more ; 
neither shall the sun light on him, nor any heat. For 
the Lamb, which is in the midst of the throne, shall 
feed him, and lead him unto living fountains of 
waters; and God, even our God^ shall wipe away all 
tears from his eyes." 

Trial : " Beloved, think it not strange concerning 
the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some 
strange thing happened unto you ; " " Count it all 
joy when ye fall into divers [trials], knowing this, 
that the trial of your faith worketh patience," etc. 
This last Scripture — correctly translated — gives us 
the key to " trial" as we are now considering it. It 
is always "the trial of your faith." It has always 
been a matter of astonishment to the writer that 
revisions of the verbal Bible should leave such bald- 



132 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



faced contradictions on the lingual surface as this : 
[Our Father,] lead us not into temptation" " Let 
no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of 
God ; for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither 
tempteth he any man." It is this mistranslation 
that has led the simple — not to say the sinful — to 
elevate themselves to the level of Jesus, or rather 
to degrade him to their own level in their miscon- 
ception of the Scripture, " was in all points tempted 
like as we [sinners] are, yet without sin," instead 
of " was in all points [tried] like as we [Christians] 
are, yet without sin." The essential truth of God's 
w r ord demands that the verbal falsities which have 
fallen on its surface be removed ; they obstruct the 
light. We are digressing, but trust that the digres- 
sion will vindicate a proper translation of any other 
such Scripture we may have occasion to use. 

We are, then, considering " the trial of [our] faith." 
If faith be soul power it is admissible that God 
should try us as to any department of its exercise. 
If we are commanded to " love God with all our 
strength," then the strength of our attachment is 
open to trial. If God has pledged us that in 
" trusting and well doing, verily we shall be fed," 
or that if we seek " first the kingdom of heaven and 
its righteousness, all these things shall be added 
unto us," then on this lowest level on which 
Christians, as such y can be tried — the level of our 
natural wants — it is admissible for God to try us as 
he did the " Captain of our salvation," to see if we 
will say, " Man shall not live by bread alone, but by 
every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of 
God." If we have been divinely exhorted, " In 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



133 



your patience possess ye your souls," then may not 
God at any time test our patience, to see if in- 
deed " we be patient, therefore, as the husbandman 
waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath 
long patience for it, until he receive the early and 
the latter rain?" If Jesus has said "watch," then 
may he not come in an hour that we are not aware, 
to see if we are " watching for the bridegroom when 
he comes ? 99 

These are tests as to our relation and condition ; 
there are others as to our training and development. 
" And it came to pass that God did [try] Abraham, 
and said unto him, Take now thy son, thine only son, 
Isaac, whom thou lovest ; . . . and offer him there for 
a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I 
will tell thee of." And " he staggered not ; 99 and the 
blade of the " King of kings " was laid gently on his 
shoulder. Rise, Abraham, " Father of the faithful." 
Thenceforth he was " the friend of God." All men 
of all ages have been accustomed to call on God for 
special strength in special need save Samson ; he 
never thus prayed till he was shorn ; he was the 
model of absolute strength ; he simply lifted the 
brazen gates upon his shoulder and walked away. 
There is no reason that we know of why absolute 
compliance should not insure absolute success ; but 
God is very considerate, and we have great need of 
his consideration. " [God] will not suffer [us] to be 
tried above that [we] are able, but will w T ith the 
[trial] also make a way to escape that [we] may be 
able to bear it." I would not test the strength of 
my young son with fifty pound dumb bells, but 
grade the weight to his present development ; the 



134 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



test would lie in the few pounds covered by will 
purpose. The margin is great in the possibilities of 
the soul — " I can do all things through Christ which 
strengtheneth me." We have always felt in keen- 
est sympathy with David when he said, " Let me 
fall now into the hand of the Lord, for very great 
are his mercies ; but let me not fall into the hand of 
man." But the devil is still " the accuser," still the 
instrument of " the fiery trial, which cometh upon 
you to prove you " (Revised Version) ; and it is no 
reproach to the soldier of the cross that he be at 
any time pierced with " the fiery darts of the evil 
one." The next time he will be on his guard and 
able to quench all these fiery darts with the shield 
of faith ; he can " be strong in the Lord and in the 
strength of his might," and the devil will be foiled 
at last. Satan challenged God as to Job, and God 
gave his gray-haired servant to be the devil's target, 
that he might at the same time be our example, 
and that God " might still the enemy and the 
avenger/ ' What a trial was his! What faith 
was developed ! " Tliough he slay me, yet will I 
trust in him." Satan made the same demand as to 
weak, presumptuous Peter — we know not how many 
between — and Jesus said, " I have prayed that thy 
faith fail not." It did not altogether fail, and there 
was developed in Peter a strength and courage that 
never wavered any more ; he was thenceforward able 
to " strengthen his brethren." We will not weary 
you, reader; the story is as long as the period the 
Bible covers, and co-extensive with the light of life. 

" Tribulation : " It is generic in our text, and we 
bear that fact in mind even while we write ; neverthe- 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



135 



less, we use it in a restricted sense according to our 
threefold divisions. When the planting of the Lord 
is plowed through and hoed over, when it has en- 
joyed the early and the latter rain, when the full 
corn in the ear has appeared, and it is neither black- 
ened with smut nor marred with rust, in its ripeness 
and in its fullness, it is ready for the treading out of 
the grain and the winnowing of the chaff, for the 
floor and the flail, for the thresher and the sepa- 
rator. It is good then, marketable, valuable, the 
concentrated elements of usefulness are there ; but 
there is only one purpose it can serve in that con- 
dition, namely, the reproduction of its kind in a 
condition corresponding with its own. If, how- 
ever, it crosses the line dividing kingdoms, it steps 
up and becomes a factor in a higher sphere, but it 
must first go under the tribnla — " be humbled that 
it may be exalted. " Then the evolving progressive- 
ness of its agency never ends ; then it becomes the 
food of the man that digs down the mountain and 
explores the mine. Then it becomes the brain sus- 
tainer of the historian, the painter, the poet, and 
the prophet, and while it sustains the physical man 
the immortal man within grows taller and stronger, 
and reaches higher and takes hold of another life. 
And by and by that already expanded soul, with 
its philosophy and its art, its poetry and its faith, 
ascends up into another kingdom nearer to God ; 
but the relation of the grain, beaten and winnowed 
and ground, has never, can never, cease. 

So much for the figure, now for the facts. The 
four advantages accruing from generic tribulation we 
have put down as humility, dependency, trust, and 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



spirituality. All these accrue from each of the 
forms of tribulation we have had under considera- 
tion, but especially are they developed in the relative 
order in which we have stated them. We will there- 
fore proceed to relate humility to disappointment. 
Pride is antithetical to humility; therefore whatever 
is productive of humility must be reductive of pride. 
I am proud of my wealth, of my office, of my 
family. If God would kindly reduce me to humil- 
ity, death may invade my family, reversion change 
my office, loss or depreciation sweep away my 
wealth, but if I must meet well-merited punishment 
my presumption will soar higher ("whom he will he 
hardeneth " >, my behavior toward God and man 
grow worse, till from the topmost height I plunge 
into the greater depths ; hence " pride goeth before 
destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." An 
instance of the last-mentioned is found in the case 
of Sennacherfb : " Therefore will I put my hook into 
thy nose " (Isa. xxxvii, 29) ; an instance of the 
first-mentioned in the humiliation of Nebuchadnez- 
zar (Dan. iv, 28-37), anc ^ another still in Saul of 
Tarsus, smitten with blindness at noon, admitted to 
the light of heaven, painfull}" struggling with the 
" thorn in the flesh," powerfully wielding 14 the 
sword of the Spirit." The popular idea of pride is 
wrong. Of course, we are natural!}' proud of our 
pride. Pride is a constitutionally diseased condition 
of the soul, an inflammation of the parts infected 
with the love of self, and sensibility is a secondary 
form of the disease growing out of the inflamed 
condition of those parts. When you have made 
your best defense of pride as a moral conservator 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



137 



you have only reached the conclusion that it is bet- 
ter to have a high vice in the heart to combat low 
vices than to be the subject of low vices with noth- 
ing to combat them. This much we admit, and 
God has so ordained, but it is better still that there 
should be in the consecrated soul of man no vice, 
either high or low ; and until you can point out the 
pride which entered into the constituency of Christ's 
character it were vain to talk of cultivating pride as 
a virtue. We have said this much of pride because 
in the development of Christian character the natu- 
ral pride must diminish by inverted ratio in propor- 
tion as holiness increases. This failing, the pruning 
hand of " the husbandman 99 must come into reduce 
this redundant and unprofitable growth and bring 
all to the level of humble usefulness. If the 'Must 
of the eyes 99 points to a brownstone front with 
frescoed decorations within, then in the kind provi- 
dence of God the coveted house literally, or meta- 
phorically, falls to the ground, and pride is covered 
with its dust. If " the pride of life " rejoices in fine 
face and well-molded form, then the fever or the 
smallpox, the white-swelling or the rheumatism, 
destroys one or both ; and with masked beauty 
and much meekness of heart that woman moves 
among the poor, or with lame earnestness and 
lowliness of soul that man, halting not in spirit, seeks 
in sinks and slums and bypaths souls for Christ. 
Need I say more? There is many a woman in the 
lowly walks of life, a candle giving light to all, 
whose light would never have shined in these low 
places if providential extinguishment had not fallen 
upon her aspirations in the circles of the pleasure- 



138 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



seekers and the mammon- worshipers. There's 
many a man whose all is laid upon God's altar now 
that never thought of consecration till his fingers 
rested on the marble brow of one who while living 
was the idol of his home and heart. " There re- 
maineth therefore a rest for the people of God," but 
still we enter not in " because of unbelief." " Blessed 
are the meek : for they shall inherit the earth," is 
hardly to be fulfilled in this present limited proba- 
tion, but, stretch into the far future as it may, it 
only extends the principle. Jesus said, " Learn of 
me ; for I am meek and lozvly in heart : and ye shall 
find rest unto your souls." This rest, then, which 
Jesus promises and to which Paul refers, is a present 
rest, the product of humility and the pledge of our 
eternal union with Christ. " Blessed are the poor 
in spirit : for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." 

Next we would relate " dependence " to " the 
trial of [our] faith." " That the trial of your faith, 
being much more precious than of gold that perish- 
eth, . . . might be found unto praise and honor and 
glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ." " Know- 
ing this, that the trial of your faith worketh pa- 
tience." Here again we must be guarded. No 
thinking man can attend our Christian experience 
meetings without noticing that in their testimony 
they mix things together sadly. They have had 
" so many temptations, and trials, and disappoint- 
ments, so much tribulation and so many crosses," 
etc., and all this thrown together as indiscriminately 
as the constituents of a dust heap. Alas ! another 
thought will intrude itself into your mind, a con- 
viction that nine tenths of the whole was produced 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



139 



by sin or folly, if there be any distinction — folly is 
sin. I am scriptural here also : " Let none of you 
suffer as a busybody in other men's matters/' " or 
as an evildoer " (" For what glory is it, if, when ye 
be buffeted for your faults, ye take it patiently ? 
"or as a thief" (having trenched upon the rights of 
others), "or as a murderer" (having hated your 
brother). And when this heavy discount is set 
aside, then comes a keen regret that such ignorance 
is still manifested in the school of Christ, for many 
of these have testified that they for forty years have 
followed, somewhere behind, the " banner of the 
cross." The man who has lain in Christ, not grown 
up into him, for one fourth of a century, has " so 
many temptations," not realizing that temptation 
is a reflection on the Christian life ; " so many 
trials," not realizing that " trial " is God's highest 
compliment to man's highest faith ; " so many dis- 
appointments," forgetful that the promise is, " De- 
light thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee 
the desires of thine heart ; " " so much tribulation," 
that is, anything against which they kick, from the 
loss of a good trade to the loss of a good wife, from 
the scratching of their finger with a brier to their 
want of acceptability in their stewardship ; and 
" crosses " withal. Which is the hardest to bear — 
God's will crossing our will, or our will vainly cross- 
ing God's will ? 

Without further argument or illustration we pro- 
ceed with the subject under consideration, namely, 
trials sent by our heavenly Father or made to sub- 
serve his purposes. We do not say, let it be under- 
stood, that disappointment and trial are necessary 



140 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



to humility and dependence. The apostle says, 
" Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith, 
prove your own selves ; " and Jesus himself has said, 
" He that shall humble himself shall be exalted ; " 
nay, he has kindly pointed out the policy of such a 
course: " When thou art bidden of any man to a 
wedding, sit down in the lowest room ; . . . that 
when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto 
thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have 
worship in the presence of them that sit at meat 
with thee/' 

The dependence of which w r e speak has in it no 
element of servility. It is a foregone conclusion 
with every true Christian that the infinite resources 
of Omnipotence are at his command, all things being 
equal ; but there are three indispensable conditions 
to the effectual employment of them, namely, hum- 
ble appreciation of our need, conscious right to ap- 
propriate, and experienced wisdom to employ ; and 
here comes in three links in the apostle's chain, 
" tribulation,'' " patience," " experience." Take the 
so-called " temptations " of Christ in the wilderness 
as illustrating our position. CouJd Satan, in the 
first trial of his faith, have misled him as to the real 
quality of his need or true ground of his dependence, 
then would he, without deference to God's will, 
have made bread of the stones. Could he have de- 
ceived him as to his right to appropriate the keep- 
ing power of God, then he would have jumped, pre- 
sumptuously, from the pinnacle of the temple. 
Could he have persuaded him that secondary things 
were of prime importance to the success of his king- 
dom, then would Jesus have done what modern 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



Churches do, taken the devil into partnership for the 
world's conversion. 

" Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the 
wilderness to have the trial of his faith by the devil." 
We know of no better Scripture on which to found 
our ultimate conclusions : " Beloved, think it not 
strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try 
you, as though some strange thing happened unto 
you/' The keenest trials recorded in Bible history, 
such as those of Job, of Jesus, and of Paul, were 
not personal but official, and therefore undeserved. 
The thing may be expected at any time, in indi- 
vidual cases, or in portions of our individual expe- 
rience. Paul's peculiar suffering grew out of his 
being appointed " apostle' to the Gentiles;" and 
every reformer has tasted more or less of these 
keen sufferings for the sake of the work in which 
he engages, and the tribulative part of these suffer- 
ings partakes of the official character of his work. 

Perhaps we could not do better than make 
our comparisons as we climb up the climax of 
Christ's trials, believing, as we do, that they were 
generic and comprehensive. And now we would 
be personal, dear reader, only that we might be 
profitable. Is the great trial of your life just now 
involved in the question, " What shall we eat, and 
what shall we drink, and wherewithal shall we be 
clothed ? 99 Realize, if you can, that you are at the 
foot of the trial ladder next to the earth. What 
dernier ressort does the devil suggest to you, a bucket 
shop or a barroom? Your family must be fed ; yes, 
we admit that ; Jesus Christ himself has said, " Your 
heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of 



1 4 2 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



these things." You say that if you refuse to work 
on Sunday you will lose your job ; yes, we see ; it is 
a great trial of your faith. " Trust in the Lord and 
do good [right] ; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and 
verily thou shalt be fed." We pray for you, our 
brother, that your faith fail not. May you realize in 
your inmost heart " that man does not live by bread 
only [directly]," and stoutly respond to the sugges- 
tions of the evil one, " By every word that proceed- 
ethout of the mouth of the Lord doth man live." 

But with you, our brother, it is different ; God 
has given you wealth, unless the devil gave it to 
you, and you are up on the second section of the 
ladder, high enough to be more directly assailed 
by " the prince of the powers of the air," high 
enough to be endangered by the slippery, preca- 
rious foothold of " spiritual wickedness in high 
places ; " and what will you do ? Your relations are 
ministerial, official, martial ? Your conscience strug- 
gles with the external pressure ; it looks like pre- 
sumption to set yourself up against all these (re- 
puted) good men — it is unmistakable presumption to 
cover up any known sin from the sight of God and 
the court of heaven. You will lose prestige, posi- 
tion, and influence with men if you put a trumpet to 
your lips now and sound a warning note ; but how 
will you atone for your neglect if you fail to do it ? 
By the compensations of your average life? By the 
loudness of your profession as contrasted with the 
silence of your protestation ? It is a time of trial 
with you, and the blood of souls is slowly percolating 
through the hem of your garment. Yet your rela- 
tion to this generic form of trial is negative ; the 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



143 



danger to you is not in what you do, but in what 
you fail to do. You are not in danger of being 
shattered by leaping from the tower, but of being 
crushed by the tower falling upon you, while you 
are in this presumptuous condition of moral leth- 
argy, spiritual syncope. 

Perhaps we may have another reader who has 
already been conveyed by the evil one to the top 
of the pinnacle, but it would be in vain to address 
him there. The leap is a foregone conclusion with 
antitypical man who has allowed himself to be car- 
ried to that dizzy height. The angels are not com- 
missioned to bear him in their hands in this his 
(evil) way, but the kind providence of God may 
modify his injuries so that, with the backbone of his 
pride broken, he may painfully creep through the 
lowly gate whereby little children enter the king- 
dom of heaven. The presumption of men who 
voluntarily skirt along the edge of sin's dark preci- 
pice, of women who climb the dizzy heights of 
fashion's slender top, of those who withdraw from 
Christ into darkness that they may seize the price 
of sin both quietly and " quickly," of those who go 
down into sensuous depths where they are alone 
with carbonic death. The presumptuousness of 
those, we say, is marvelous, at least to the dispas- 
sionate. But Satan knows " to w T hom," "with 
what," and " when." One soars aloft in noise and 
flame like the rocket propelled by presumption 
from beneath, and falls in darkness and extinction 
like the returning stick, obedient to its own law of 
gravitation. One dances fashion's ballet over the 
footlights of sin and burns, a crisped monument 



144 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



within the precincts of presumption. One folds his 
hands and rolls his eyes and says, u God is too good 
to burn his child in hell/' and so goes backward and 
blindfolded from the green fields of mercy over the 
edge of presumption into the crater of death. Alas ! 
alas! my friend, you are casemated against the 
counsel of your friends and the mercy that antici- 
pates justice, but not against the fumes of moral 
death or flames of divine wrath. 

The third form seems to be insidious almost 
beyond popular appreciation ; each individual leaps 
after the bait as leaps the silly fish after the tinsel 
fly, and almost solid congregations go after the 
tinkle of the devil's bell as sheep rush headlong 
where their leader goes. What is this deception, so 
subtle as to fool men in masses, and which it seems 
to require the delicate perception of the uncontami- 
nated mind that was in Christ to discover? It has 
been reduced to axiomatic proportions by casuists : 
" The end justifies the means." There never was a 
period of the world's history when religionists were 
not at it. The Jews would not put " the cost of a 
dog " or " the price of blood " in the treasury, but 
they would put in " corban " — though it was filial 
theft from feeble age. The Jesuit and Jesuitical 
hierarchy could go before altars and elevations 
they deemed to be of God with garments reeking 
with the smoke of persecution and fingers dripping 
with its blood ; it was " the suppression of heresy." 
There is Church property in the United States which 
is rented for prostitution ; it is " the hire of a whore," 
but it is claimed that it goes into the treasury of 
the Lord. All the questionable methods of raising 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



145 



money for Church purposes find ready apologists 
alike in pulpit and in pew, " O, there is no evil in 
the thing itself ; every man knows that his money is 
going to good purposes ; " and to the gambling spirit 
of the age they say, " Come, and perhaps you will 
get something for nothing, and we will make giv- 
ing as easy as painless tooth pulling ; you will have 
an equivalent of them and never know that you have 
given anything" — neither will God. 

But you will interrupt me here to ask, " Where is 
the trial in all this ? " This is the first part of it in 
your case, as in that of your Saviour. Listen to 
the devil and he will give you bread for your infi- 
delity, fame for your presumption, and wealth and 
worldly power for the homage done to him. On 
the other hand, say, " Get thee behind me, Satan," 
and then the devil is insulted. Jesus did not hesi- 
tate to do that. The test is over then, and the trial 
absolute begins ; it lasted with Jesus three years, 
and terminated with his death. Satan had a con- 
venient tool in Herod Antipas. Enthroned right 
in the field which Jesus sought to cultivate, the 
Master found it necessary to go round him. He 
had another, Caiaphas, a bogus priest and political 
trickster, enshrined in the chosen city. " O Jeru- 
salem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and 
stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often 
would I have gathered thy children together, even 
as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, 
and ye would not ! " From him and his myrmidons 
Jesus had often to draw aside. He had refused to 
take bread and raiment from the devil, so it was 
furnished him by a reformed woman, a fisherman's 
10 



146 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



wife, and others equally poor, who hovered near to 
minister to him. The tools of the devil had pal- 
aces, but he had not " where to lay his head/' and 
the time soon came when he was constrained to say, 
" But this is your hour and [the time] of the power 
of darkness." Truly it was a time when friends 
all forsook him and foes all united against him. 
He was a King, O what a King ! and they put a 
reed in his hand and spit upon him. He was " Cap- 
tain of the Lord's host," but they blindfolded and 
buffeted him, and the slave of a petty despot slapped 
him in the face ! He was the owner of this world — 
" in him all things consist " — and they crucified him 
between two men who had taken what was not their 
own. It was not until he hung upon the cross of 
death that the " great light he had made to rule 
the day " covered his face ; it was not until he died 
that the rocks were rent, for aught I know, from 
Jerusalem to the antarctic coast ; it was not until 
he died that those two heroes, Joseph and Nico- 
demus, felt the power of his hold upon them. 
All honor to the men that are faithful to the dead ! 
Yet, be it remembered, that it was not until he said 
of his work, " It is finished, " that he died at all, and 
when he died his death had but two parts in it, 
the commending of his spirit to God and the quiet 
exhalation of his life. It was only when he rose 
again that he broke the chains of death and defeated 
him who had the power of the grave. Alas for our 
dead bodies if he had not conquered then ! 

This leads us from "dependence" to " trust," the 
other product of trial, and as we have the trials of 
the Son of man under consideration we will begin 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



147 



with him. If, however, the reader persists in view- 
ing him, according to the popular theory, as some 
incomprehensible compound of divinity and human- 
ity, we know of nothing which can make the consid- 
eration of his exemplary life profitable to us. If he 
were an indefinable compound of two homogeneous 
natures we know of no safe inference to be drawn 
as to either of these natures uncompounded ; but 
if his humanity was simple, however dignified by 
the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, then we can learn 
from his example what are the capacities of our sim- 
ple humanity also dignified by the indwelling of the 
Holy Ghost. It was with great pleasure that we 
found the fine, clear mind of Dr. L. W. Munhall 
subscribing to the fact that our Saviour wrought 
miracles by the power of the Holy Ghost. And we 
pause here to say, let none quibble about the essen- 
tial divinity; the incarnation was the will and wis- 
dom of triune divinity put into practice, and the 
Trinity was as competent to determine the mode 
of operation as the fact of incarnation. But we re- 
sume, and take up our argument at the grave of 
Lazarus. Here Jesus prayed that the people might 
see that he did his work in the power and accord- 
ing to the will of God. He said, " Father, I thank 
thee that thou hast heard me," and further, " I 
know that thou hearest me always." So the power 
to raise Lazarus was given in answer to prayer, and 
it was " always " so. The trust thus expressed was 
very great, if Jesus was an example ; but it is not 
of that kind of trust that we desire to speak. It is 
said that " he learned obedience by that which he 
suffered ;" still it is not of obedience that we desire 



148 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



to speak, but of the trust engendered by conscious 
helplessness on the one part and cultivated faith 
in God on the other, of which Jesus is our pattern 
in the consensus of his exemplary relations to God 
the Father, through the Holy Ghost, from the wil- 
derness to Calvary. 

We know that we are wont to treat belief, faith, 
and trust as synonyms, but, to be nice, belief is sim- 
ply an abstract conviction of truth against faith, 
which is an active appropriative principle, making 
it " the substance of things hoped for." But trust 
deals not with obstructions, but is a per se passive 
and practically patient expectation of tangible things 
to come, founded in love ; and in its margin giving 
ample scope for nearly all the virtues described in 
the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians. It 
is constitutionally allied to humility, and therein 
differentiated from confidence, and is usually the 
product of suffering in helplessness. It cannot, 
therefore, co-exist with pride, but is found only in 
the "child" who has not learned to have pride, or 
the humble " little one" who has learned to lay it 
down. It never describes or demands, but is ever 
prepared to say, " Though he slay me, yet will I 
trust in him." 

We resume, therefore, the consideration of trust 
as an element in the personal righteousness of the 
man Christ Jesus. And while we affirm that obe- 
dience is not trust we admit that it is nearly related 
to it, productive of it, and proceeding from it, and 
submit that if Jesus learned obedience by the things 
which he suffered he must at the same time have 
learned its almost inseparable corollary of trust. 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 149 



From the beginning to the end this trust is co-ex- 
tensive with the trials which produced it. In the 
(trial) in the wilderness it is manifested in the first 
answer, " Man liveth by every word which proceed- 
eth out of the mouth of God it is equally mani- 
fested in the last words he spoke upon the cross, 
"Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." 
How great that trust was we are but little prepared 
to appreciate, because our minds are perpetually be- 
fogged with the idea that Christ lived in the con- 
stant exercise of his own divine power, which would 
emasculate the soul of his humanity and rob his 
life and character of all that is exemplary. " In the 
days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers 
and supplications with strong crying and tears unto 
him that was able to save him from death, and was 
heard in that he feared ; though he were a Son, yet 
learned he obedience by the things which he suf- 
fered." The agony of " supplications with strong 
crying and tears" cannot be, was not in his case, 
co-existent with trust; trust comes after it. "He 
was heard in that he feared," but the agonized re- 
quest was not granted. God's will abode in the 
qualification ; " the cup could not pass from him 
except he drank it." The coming victory over the 
shrinking flesh was voiced in the ultimate words, 
"Thy will be done," intelligently reached in that 
other declaration, " For this cause — cup — hour- — 
came I into the world ; n nevertheless, the apostle 
says, " He learned [submission] by the things which 
he suffered ; " when he learned submission he 
learned to trust, and when he learned to trust he 
no longer " feared." Henceforward his humanity 



i5o 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



assented to his soul-death, and assented to it in 
trust ; why else would he have said, " Into thy 
hands I commend my spirit?" As God he could 
not suffer vicarious sufferings ; neither as God could 
he prevent these sufferings and secure the divine 
end — " God in Christ reconciling the world unto him- 
self " — he so declared. With what tenderness of sym- 
pathy, having been " touched with a feeling of our 
infirmities," he said to the three, u Pray that ye 
enter not into [trial like mine]." With what sub- 
limity of trust he conceded to that rabble represen- 
tation of the Sanhedrin and of Satan, " But this is 
your hour and the power of darkness." But the 
clearest example of all, and triple in its character, is 
found in his last words. They indicate — we might 
say demonstrate — first, the entire separability of 
his human from his divine nature; secondly, the 
completeness of his human spirit or soul and the 
corresponding differentiation of it from his divinity, 
on the one hand, and — as in ourselves — from the 
animal and perishable nature on the other; and, 
lastly, his trust in God, in conscious dependence 
upon him to take care of his soul with the apper- 
taining animal life which must accompany it for 
purposes of resurrection. And so we pass from the 
God-man, or, as he loved to call himself, " The Son 
of man," to the consideration of those who are only 
men. 

The history of many men in their conversion is 
but an epitome of the more extended work when 
Christ is being formed in them. See Gal. iv and 
xix. Until a man feels as helpless as Peter did 
when the cold waters of Galilee began to creep up 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



151 



his adventurous legs he is not in condition to ap- 
preciate a Saviour — indeed, he is not safe in the 
dawning of his conscious helplessness ; for if in the 
wrong exercise of his free will he stop the process 
here it may but mark at best the general line be- 
tween repentance and remorse or lock the door be- 
hind him in the confines of despair. It is partly 
this which makes not only the preaching of the 
Gospel, but any work of the Spirit or any providen- 
tial dealings of God with the soul of man, " a savor 
of life unto life, or of death unto death;" but as 
we are dealing only with the right uses of adversity 
we pass on. 

We all know how symbolical was the history of 
the children of Israel in their exodus. They felt 
their helplessness between Pihahiroth and Baalze- 
phon, but out of their helplessness their trust was 
born, that night of trial and travail, when they 
walked the ocean's bed dry-shod because " the 
depths were congealed in the heart of the sea." 
Evermore they should have sung that song of Moses 
and of Miriam from " the tongue of the Egyptian 
Sea " to the border of the " promised land." So the 
individual is reduced in the providence of God to 
that extremity which is God's opportunity; and 
when all pride is laid aside, all self-sufficiency for- 
gotten, there is " the upward lifting of the eye when 
none but God is near." So highly is the sublimity 
of an exalted trust appreciated among men that I 
hardly need dwell upon it, but wherein its sublimity 
lies I must endeavor to explain. 

Man, whether he will or no, appreciates every- 
thing in the degree in which it is essentially God- 



152 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



like in obedience to his divine instincts and according 
to his capacity to appreciate. When, therefore^ a 
man stands up in the strength of the faith that 
trusts, the nature of man intuitively perceives God's 
nearness ; and when God, to sustain himself, sustains 
his servant's trust, then the human heart quivers 
under the consciousness of divine presence and 
power. We must close the argument. You will 
find no example of such trust in the man "whose 
eyes stand out with fatness" or whose u cheeks are 
red with wine." You will find none of it in the 
woman whose coarse form is arrayed in all the par- 
venu glories of her husband's last success. But 
there are brows worn with sorrow, temples furrowed 
with marks of care on which Time's finger has writ- 
ten many things 'twere worth your while to stop and 
read ; for Christian foreheads are not like those in 
which the world and self have only dwelt. Like 
marble or like parchment they may be, but there 
you find over the lines of the sorrow, under the 
marks of its endeavor, the unvarying life plan. 
"Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou 
dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed." 
And over all you will read, as if written by the fin- 
ger of God in letters of soft light, " Blessed are the 
meek: for they shall inherit the earth." 

Trust, however great, or however natural through 
habit, presupposes remoteness as well as relation. 
It is the locomotive which proceeds along the con- 
meeting track from the source of supply to the place 
of necessity. It does not fly hither and thither like 
thistledown in the air ; it does not play hide and 
seek with the tangibilities of life ; it goes straight 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. I 53 



to its destination, carrying constantly heavier freights 
and bringing the starting point practically nearer to 
the terminus. This is the office of trust and ex- 
plains the philosophy of prayer ; prayer is the out- 
come of trust, and trust the product of prayer, and 
the result of this reciprocal exercise is the straight- 
ening of the lines and shortening of the connections 
between the soul and God. We think trust natural 
to childhood, remarkable if strong in middle life, and 
becoming to old age ; but a silent awe steals over us 
when we witness its exhibitions on the bed of death ; 
why? Because we intuitively perceive that it has 
brought us into proximity with God, and is near its 
consummation. Here we end this part of our argu- 
ment. If in the providence of God this comes as 
the result of suffering, could that suffering have 
been too great as compared with the magnitude of 
the result? If the bones of the man's self-reliance 
were broken only that his faith might take hold and 
prevail with God ; if he halted in the race, that was 
presumptuous through pride, only that he might grip 
God's hand with the tenacity of depending trust ; 
if he walked through the " valley of the shadow of 
death," all dark above and slippery beneath, and 
nevertheless held high his earthly vessel and learned 
" in patience to possess his soul ; " if it shall be said 
of him, " He came out of great tribulation and 
therein washed his robes and made them white in 
the blood of the Lamb, and "therefore " is before the 
throne of God, and God shall wipe away all tears 
from his eyes," we ask in conclusion the question, 
Has he earned too dearly the guerdon of his im- 
mortality? 



154 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



The progress of my subject has now brought me 
to the consideration of tribulation as distinct from 
disappointment or trial, and as being practically the 
consummation of a progressive process. Not that 
each individual must necessarily suffer all these 
things in their particular order ; but we mean to say 
that the progress we have described is normal and 
subject to no greater variation than the development 
of physical qualities by exercise. We say normal, but 
not as we heard a distinguished divine say but the 
other day, that men were so constituted of God as 
to require suffering for their development, and that 
Christ, the great Sufferer, must needs have come into 
the world and suffered had man continued in his 
first estate. With such teachers from pulpit and 
platform what may we expect from the masses ? 

All things partake of the degeneracy of deprav- 
ity resulting from the fall of man. Therefore the 
figures are low in proportion to that fact. If the 
wheat was unfallen wheat, no doubt its ripe, 
clean grain, all well filled, and without cockle, would 
fall into the lap of the husbandman ; and the 
threshing floor would have had no place in a per- 
petual paradise. But, as it is, the flail represents 
painstaking on the part of the owner and pain- 
suffering on the part of the grain, as a necessity 
growing out of its fallen and imperfect condition 
under the divine fiat, " Cursed is the ground for thy 
sake ; in sorrow shall thou eat of it all the days of thy 
life ; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to 
thee ; ... in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat 
bread 99 (Gen. iii, 17-19). So with the fallen con- 
dition of the soul : its sufferings are the result of its 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. I 5 5 



sins; and in its relations to God the pain-suffering 
and the painstaking on either side are the result 
of depravity, and neither would have obtained had 
man never forfeited his original estate. Here again 
we rejoice in the correctness of popular theology, for 
the universal mind of Christendom is agreed that 
pain is a natural evil, and all natural evils are the 
result of sin. Be it, therefore, understood that all 
we have to say about the adva?itages of tribulation 
is founded upon our broad conviction that all the 
sufferings which the Redeemer of men endured in 
bringing many souls into glory, and all zvkich they 
endure in qualifying for that higher life, are alike 
the result of man s fallen condition, and thereby 
brought upon u Him who loved us and gave himself 
for us" 

Spirituality : If our recollection serves we have 
now (under the original plan) only to consider what 
constitutes tribulation properly in the providential 
dealings of God with his children, and how it works 
spirituality. When the apostle says, " The suffer- 
ings of this life are not to be compared with the 
glory that shall be revealed in us," he is not speaking 
of tribulation per se, but of the aggregated suffer- 
ings of Christians as such, which, when the balance 
is struck, are not as great as those of unregenerate 
men ; and particularly of such as are endured with 
Christ and for his sake, having the general nature 
of martyrdom. But when he says, " The Lord chas- 
teneth those whom he loveth, and scourgeth every 
son whom he receiveth," he is looking to this, and 
speaking directly of this thing. 

Here we would diverge just long enough to say 



i 5 6 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



that the family relations were ordained for this in 
part, that they only could enable us to understand 
the relation of " our Father which is in heaven." 
Having these, with the greatest possible clearness 
do we explain and appreciate the mutual relation 
along the lines of parental and filial affection. The 
figure, therefore, is properly in the form of an abso- 
lute declaration of those relations. When the good 
and wise earthly father seeks by punishment (cor- 
poral or otherwise), by restriction, in the subordi- 
nation of the child's will to his will, that child's 
highest well being, he is doing for his son just what 
God is doing for us as our several conditions may 
demand. 

It is not according to any of the analogies of na- 
ture that we should be able to appreciate a radical 
change of being. The worm that instinctively 
weaves the winding sheet of death to one condition 
cannot appreciate in advance another condition 
having a different sphere, a diverse constitution, and 
widely different environments. It is with profound 
astonishment we observe that men — thinking, Chris- 
tian men — do not regard these changes in the lower 
grades of animal life as adumbrating our resurrec- 
tion to another state of being, whereas the difference 
is only in degree. But to nothing below the grade 
of man belongs expectation, speculation, aspiration, 
revelation of and appreciation of another life. The 
worm cannot be an intelligent party to the condi- 
tions on which he can become a butterfly. Man is 
the only animal that has within himself the capaci- 
ties of a life not animal, not reciprocal, not rotative, 
and not reproductive. It would be strange, there- 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



157 



fore, if he, a created being, or a constitutional being, 
or an evolved being, had no conscious relation to a 
necessitated essential change of condition ; but not 
strange to a believer that he has a conscious relation 
through faith, and an appreciative relation through 
speculative intelligence to a higher grade of being 
with essentially different relations. 

Perhaps you will ask, What has all this to do 
with tribulation? We cheerfully answer, A great 
deal. Going back to the family relation, the chas- 
tisement of a much-loved son in a well-disciplined 
family was at that time truly " not joyous but 
grievous; " nevertheless afterward it yielded — what 
fruit? That of a magnificent manhood. So "our 
light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh 
for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of 
glory ; while we look not at the things which are seen ; 
. . . for the things which are seen are temporal." 
Most true is this latter proposition, and the key, 
withal, to the whole thing. The full man, the suc- 
cessful man, looks only on these temporal and tem- 
porary things, his comfort, his indulgence, his acqui- 
sitions, and his pride; but when his wealth takes 
wing and his anxious soul bows his suffering body 
most humbly before God, then he becomes strong 
in his weakness, rich in his poverty, happy in his 
sufferings, and then he turns his eyes on " the things 
which are not seen," which he did not see before, 
and becomes godlike in the breadth of his views, 
for " the things which are not seen are eternal." 

What more can we say ? The sufferings of Christ, 
in whatever degree they were not vicarious, consti- 
tuted a body of tribulation. He never suffered for 



i 5 8 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



wrongdoing, never for being a busybody in other 
men's matters. The least that could be said of his 
agony on the cross is that it was martyrdom. If 
his sufferings were exemplary to us, not under cir- 
cumstances of sin, but of trial or tribulation ; or if 
they were educational, bringing him into nearer sym- 
pathy personally or perfunctorily with us, still it is, 
in the relation he condescends to accept toward us, 
the companionship of fiery trials that try men's 
souls, 44 not strange," " happy are ye," " partakers 
of Christ's sufferings," " if so be that we suffer with 
him, that we may be also glorified together. For 
I reckon that the sufferings [tribulations] of this 
present time are not worthy to be compared with 
the glory which shall be revealed in us." If we also 
can be made perfect in suffering, let us suffer. 

" I'll suffer on my threescore years 

'Till my Deliverer come, 
And wipe away his servant's tears, 

And take his exile home." 

If only in the crucible can our placid souls mirror 
the Master's face, then let the fiery trial try us 
to the full. We would be a Christian athlete before 
we die, having been developed in the training school 
of the Agonist of the garden into " the measure of 
the stature of the fullness of Christ." 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



159 



PICTURE IV. 

(Chapters viii and ix.) 

THREE descriptive and antithetical panoramas 
having passed, there comes now under the 
consideration of the apostle some that are histor- 
ical and consecutive. Picture IV, comprising the 
eighth and ninth chapters, is the first of this series. 
The history set forth in the three succeeding pic- 
tures is of the apocalyptic period, which (as the 
Apocalypse contains no description of the millen- 
nium) is particularly the longer portion of time, ex- 
tending from the second coming of Christ to the 
millennium, and the shorter portion from the mil- 
lennium to the judgment. 

Now mark the opening of the seventh and last 
seal: " There was silence in heaven about the space 
of half an hour." It is in the highest degree sug- 
gestive. The relations of heaven and earth are 
about to undergo a great change. The hush in the 
rehearsal suggests two things : the interest and as- 
tonishment of angelic beings, and the suspension 
which precedes a change of base, and more active 
renewal of attack on this world's battlefield. The 
writer believes that an interval of some hundred or 
more years will occur between the second coming 
of Christ to abstract the bodies of the righteous 
dead from their graves and take them to heaven 



i6o 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



with him (if you believe he does) and their return to 
the earth to begin actively the apocalyptic cam- 
paign, as the reader will find in the essay on " The 
Third Period. " 

If we should undertake to explain briefly the 
preliminary and episodical part described in verses 
3,4, 5, chapter ix, could we do better than say over 
that altar was written, " Shall not God avenge his 
own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though 
he bear long with them ? " 

The work of punishing long-continued sin, of 
convincing or destroying sinners, now begins in 
earnest. 

It is not to be assumed because these plagues ap- 
pear in the living tableau in such rapid succession 
that therefore they are visited on the earth with 
like rapidity. A hundred or more years is likely to 
elapse between these punitive plagues that men 
may have an opportunity to repent or time to 
harden their hearts and " fill up the measure of 
their iniquities.'' These plagues are literal. The 
first, physical and electrical, results in the destruc- 
tion of crops and pasturage — the advanced science of 
the day readily explains. Skepticism mocks, but in 
some few wisdom is born of fear. The second, 
seismic — the philosophical explain. The strong- 
minded sneer at the superstitious, a few are con- 
verted. The wheels of commerce spin again; all 
things are as they were'. The third, meteoric, per- 
meates a belt of the earth and vitiates springs and 
flowing streams — wonderful, but easily accounted for 
by infallible scientism. The latter day magicians 
will do likewise, with their philosophical experi- 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



161 



ments (enchantments), and the excitement must 
die out, though a few will believe. The fourth^ 
astronomic — strange phenomena ; sudden removal 
of combustion from a portion of the sun's sur- 
face ; just what the savants had expected and 
really predicted ; condition of the moon easily ac- 
counted for by that of the sun ; planets of our 
sidereal system sympathetically affected ; the old 
woman's story about God doing it to be discarded 
by the knowing and the cultivated. Andwhen the 
world has become familiar with eight hours of day- 
light for work and sixteen hours of darkness for 
sin they will say, " In the grand process of evolu- 
tion the diminution of the day and the extension 
of tlie night precisely meet the demands of this 
rapidly advancing age, and zve hardly miss stellar 
twilight when one topherean lamp illuminates the 
city:' 

In the ensuing pause fearful are the predictions 
of the angel, not heard on earth, for he flies " through 
the midst of heaven," crying, " Woe, woe, woe, to 
the inhabitants of the earth by reason of the other 
voices of the trumpet of the three angels which are 
yet to sound." And the fifth angel sounds, and 
hell is turned loose on earth, and the torment they 
inflict has the sting of the worm that dieth not ; and 
for the first time since Christ came into the world 
to redeem it is providential punishment seen to 
pass by the righteous and strike the wicked. We 
should not, perhaps, pass from this feature in the 
picture without calling the reader's attention to the 
fact that these were the fallen angels, with the devil 
at their head, for whom hell was ordained. This 
11 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



prepares us for the last feature in this terrible pres- 
entation. The sixth angel sounds, and a voice 
(not heretofore heard), that of the Holy Ghost, ap- 
pearing to speak from the top of the golden altar, 
directs that the four angels (powers) bound in the 
Euphrates be loosed. With them are loosed their 
hosts, numbering two hundred million.* John 
may well say, " I heard the number of them ; " 
for had they been marshaled in the panoramic pres- 
entation he could not, save by the wonderful ap- 
preciation of his spiritual powers, count or even 
see them. These, then, are to be the resurrected 
hosts that in the last days shall rise from the dust 
of the earth to shame and everlasting contempt, from 
the hell that was moved to receive them — the old 
trans-Euphratean persecutors of the Jews, under 
their old leaders, probably Tiglath-pileser, Shalma- 
neser, Nebuchadnezzar, and Sennacherib ; for they 
were royal warriors, as we learn from Rev. xvi, 19, 
which, in the curious involutions of the book, is but 
a repetition of what we are now considering. The 
period for which they are to be returned to the 
earth is twice stated, "an hour and a day" — pro- 
phetic style, thirteen months ; literally, a month and 
a year, thirteen months. These two vast armies 
of evil spirits and condemned men take grotesque 
shapes which may apply only to the pictured sym- 
bolism and not the future fact. The appalling 
sequel of their persistent idolatry is stated in an old- 
fashioned way, due, no doubt, to the fact that John 
was left to tell it in his own language. And so 
ends this picture of the antemillennial plagues. 
* The writer thinks this is probably a clerical error. 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 163 



Abstract Treatise. 

ESSAY ON HEAVEN. 

So long had the idea obtained that heaven was 
to be the eternal home of the soul while the world 
lay under the domination of religious charlatans, 
who traded in purchasable righteousness and pur- 
gatorial purifying, that the few who of late years 
have dimly appreciated the promise of " the new 
heaven and the new earth/' having no consistent 
construction of intermediate things by which to 
link their conceptions of the future with the facts 
of the present, have so far made but little headway 
against a sea so heavy and a tide so strong. 

But the world moves ; the twilight of the past 
gives way; "the Sun of righteousness" is said to 
rise, the whole world rolls under his directer beams, 
and he brings "life and immortality to light." He 
is "the truth," in him we see; he is "the life," in 
him we live ; his heat quickens mind as well as 
matter; being himself " the way," his light illumi- 
nates the track of human progress, and makes it 
brighter and brighter to its culmination. 

" The whole world lieth in the wicked one," where 
darkness is. "Awake thou that sleepest " in self- 
surrounding darkness, " and arise from the dead," 
where inertia broods upon decay, "and Christ shall 
give thee light." And so we awake and lean on 
him in whom "all things consist." We raise our 
eyes to him, as Tabitha may have done, and the 
kind hand helps us to our feet. We look from the 



164 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



dark past to the brighter present, and we say, " My 
soul cleaveth unto the dust : quicken thou me ac- 
cording to thy word," " Open thou mine eyes, that 
I may behold wondrous things out of thy law," 
" Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto 
my path," u The entrance of thy words giveth 
light ; it giveth understanding unto the simple," 
" I have more understanding than all my teachers : 
for thy testimonies are my meditation." 

Pardon us, reader ; we have been hurried along on 
this stream of divine testimony ; we might have ex- 
pressed our heartfelt conviction that all knowledge 
of God and divine things comes through the revela- 
tion of God and by the inspiration of God in the 
concise language of James (i, 5): " If any of you 
lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all 
men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be 
given him." With this conviction strong upon us, 
with this binnacle steadily before us, we close our 
ears to the teachings of the schools, untaught, and 
to the traditions of the past, long dead, and turn to 
the revelations of God's word to learn zvhat and 
where shall be the home of the redeemed. The 
careful reader of the New Testament will see that 
the Jewish appreciation of the closing up of the af- 
fairs of this world in a universal resurrection and 
general judgment, succeeded by conditions of reward 
or punishment, was enlarged in the minds of the 
disciples by taking in the Lord's second coming to 
administer the resurrection and the judgment, to- 
gether with an imperfect idea of the establishment 
of his kingdom. 

Now we must return and establish our positions ; 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



165 



first, as to the four features of Jewish popular opin- 
ion then existing, namely, the resurrection, the 
judgment, rewards, and punishment. 

1. Resurrection. Martha said (John xi, 24), "I 
know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at 
the last day." Paul said (Acts xxiii, 6), " Of the 
hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in 
question ; 99 and you know what followed. 

2. Judgment * Jesus speaks of the future judg- 
ment as an acknowledged fact, which it was, and 
denied only by the Sadducees. 

3. Reward. " Good Master, what good thing shall 
I do, that I may have eternal life?" (Matt, xix, 16.) 
" And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and 
was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom 99 
(Luke xvi, 22). 

4. Punishment. "And in hell he lifted up his 
eyes, being in torments " (Luke xvi, 23). 

The whole allegory was built on the then exist- 
ing popular theology ; in the first place, because it 
was appreciated and unchallenged ; secondly, be- 
cause it was indorsable and true ; so (Matt, xviii, 9) 
" rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell 
fire 99 is assumed by Jesus to be popularly under- 
stood. 

Now in the minds of the disciples only he comes 
to " administer " (Matt, xxiv, 3) and to set up his 
" kingdom." (Acts i, 6) "Wilt thou at this time 
restore again the kingdom to Israel ? 99 

But let us trace the enlargement as it proceeds in 
the minds of the apostles, first before, and then 
after they had asked the above question. They 

*See Matt, xi, 22-24 5 x ii> 4 r > 4 2 - 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



had become familiar with the fact of his resurrec- 
tion, with the transition from the material to spirit- 
ual and back again, but curiosity prompted them to 
renew the old question as to time, and they were 
again repulsed. The next enlargement of their 
conceptions is through the Holy Ghost, involving 
the most delicate question, What does the prophet 
necessarily know of that which he predicts ? 

We have elsewhere sought to show that, at one 
point at least, their inspiration falls short, and they 
presumptuously, perhaps, substitute their own pre- 
conceived convictions, which reflects only on the 
men, not on their inspiration, nor on the Author 
of that inspiration. He told them they could not 
know of the time, therefore they ought not to have 
said it was either long or short. 

They receive the Holy Ghost not as an inspira- 
tion from Jesus, but in his distinctive personality, 
as being sent of the Son and of the Father, to be 
with them and in them. They had preached much, 
reiterating the words of Jesus, but now they speak 
as the Spirit gives them utterance ; they are perpet- 
ual prophets " filled with the Holy Ghost/' And as 
he caused them to utter so they learned to know 
and to appreciate more perfectly the fact that 
Christ's kingdom was a spiritual kingdom, reaching 
by degrees what the dying but inspired thief over- 
took at a single stride when he said, " Lord, re- 
member me when thou comest into thy kingdom." 

Now the offices of Peter, James, and John, who 
were " eyewitnesses of his majesty," come in to 
explain to them over and over again how he ap- 
peared when they " were with him in the holy 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



167 



mount; " and they reasoned together as to the rela- 
tion of that brief glimpse of glistening robe and 
form to the glory that should be revealed. Then 
Saul of Tarsus, the metaphysician, came in, and 
Paul, the privileged man, was added to the number. 
He fought shy of them at first, and they of him ; 
Peter antagonized him (they were uncongenial), 
but grace conquered, and he subscribed to that 
in faith and charity which he could not understand. 

Matthew had written his gospel himself, Peter 
wrote his through Mark. Paul was not so much an 
eyewitness of the things done by Jesus as of the 
things done unto him ; so Paul wrote his gospel 
through Luke. John forebore. Peter and James 
wrote their epistles, telling what they severally 
knew of Chrises com ingkingdom ; they had seen Jesus 
in heavenly garb. Paul wrote his epistles telling what 
he further knew — he had seen Jesus in heaven it- 
self. Novices caught the flame — will the Church 
ever be free from those who think themselves to be 
" somewhat ? " — and wrote forged letters to the 
Church at Thessalonica, and Paul commits himself 
sadly in his reply; nevertheless, we thank God for 
Paul's letters to the Thessalonians. And Judas, of 
whom some say "he was not an apostle," which is 
fudge, gives the world his conceptions of the second 
coming of Christ — conqueror, judge, executioner — 
all in a breath, and of the heaven, which was to follow, 
in these w T ords, " Faultless before the presence of 
his glory with exceeding joy." And John, of whom 
Jesus said to Peter, not " he shall not die," but " if I 
will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee ? " 
John filled in the long record of a Saviour's love in 



i68 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



his supplemental gospel, and then comes the time 
for this second Daniel " greatly beloved/' to see 
his Lord once more, once more to hear his voice, 
and in a matinee such as the world could never 
see behold the rehearsal prepared for him of this 
world's drama to its close. 

Before returning to trace the progress of this 
thought in the minds of the apostles, as revealed 
in this epistle, let us scan the gospels briefly to see 
where the modern idea of heaven comes from ; and, 
be it understood, we introduce this rather as an 
apology for the present orthodoxy with a view to 
its enlargement and not its abrogation. We shall 
not stop to cite passages ; the thing is too plain 
for that, and the curious or captious reader can refer 
to his concordance. 

Jesus claimed, in literal and figurative language, 
to have come down from heaven, from his Father 
who was in heaven, from the glory he had with his 
Father before the world was, and declared that he 
was going back to heaven to sit on the right hand 
of God (heaven as a dwelling place of God was an 
idea familiar to the Jewish mind), and offers to all 
who would accept him everlasting life, with a great 
preparatory change, being born again. He prayed 
the Father that these his disciples might be with 
him to behold his glory, and proclaimed such iden- 
tity with his followers as made it necessary that 
where he was there they should also be, And this 
was heaven, an enlargement on the Jewish idea, a 
preparation for the rending of the temple's vail, 
and the appreciation of a union of the human soul 
with God through him who partook of both natures. 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



169 



This the disciples grafted onto their preconceived 
and misconstructed ideas of the Messianic kingdom, 
and really prepared the way for the misapprehension 
or nonapprehension of generations to come after 
them. The fully established Christian Church, hav- 
ing outlived the Jewish prejudices and weary of 
waiting the fulfillment of apostolic promises of 
Christ's coming, threw the Messianic kingdom over- 
board entirely, and rested their hope upon the eter- 
nal dwelling of the soul with Christ in heaven, and 
from the Scylla of misconception fell into the Cha- 
rybdis of a wrong departure, where we flounder still. 

So now we will turn back and see how far the 
revelations of the apostles went, and how far their 
appreciations seem to have kept pace with them. 
We shall not deal with them in the order in which 
they write, but rather in the order of their appar- 
ent development. Jude, who wrote after Paul and 
before John, seems only to have attained to the 
conception of a pure (faultless) elevation and a glo- 
rified condition of happiness immediately to suc- 
ceed the second advent ; yet the inspiration in all 
these cases is neither deficient nor wrong, but the 
truth is involved like the kernel in a nut, and what 
is wanting in one is furnished by another. 

James has but one idea, the getting ready for the 
" crown of life." This idea, wherever found, is a 
pregnant one, for the style of the preparation indi- 
cates the nature of the anticipated event ; and if it 
has a future, as the future is expected to be so will 
the preparation be. He further exhorts to patience 
under the beautiful figure of the husbandman wait- 
ing through the early and the latter rain for the 



i;o 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



fruition of his labors, giving expression, of course, 
to the error of the da}-, " the coming of the Lord 
draweth nigh." 

Next comes Peter, and he broadens on the sub- 
ject. He argues from the cleansing diluvian wave 
of water a purifying, transmuting wave of flame ; 
his inspiration takes hold on the ultimate, " a new 
heaven and a new earth," with cause and condition 
appended, that therein may dwell righteousness. 
He is strong in the declarative part. He declares 
that the existing earth and atmosphere are reserved 
for fire ; that they shall be melted and dissolved in 
the fervent heat thereof with fearful detonation : 
that the earth with all things mundane shall be 
burned up ; that there shall be in connection there- 
with a day of judgment and perdition of ungodly 
men ; and, on the other hand, " new heavens and a 
new earth/' our inheritance, if we do not fall from 
our own steadfastness. But his limited apprehension 
is manifest in that he says, " But the day of the 
Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which 
the heavens shall pass away with a great noise," 
whereas Jesus says, "I tell you, in that night there 
shall be two in one bed, the one shall be taken, 
and the other left." The revelations are of the 
Hoh' Ghost, the chronology is of Peter. 

Xow the heaven in view (i Peter i, 3— 13) : 
" Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, which according to his abundant mercy 
hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the 
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an in- 
heritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that 
fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



171 



are kept by the power of God through faith unto 
salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 
Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now [necessarily] 
"ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations 
[trials] : that the trial of your faith [which is much 
more precious than gold], . . . might be found unto 
praise and honor and glory at the appearing of 
Jesus Christ : whom having not seen, ye love ; in 
whom [though still you see him not], yet believing, 
ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory : 
receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation 
of your souls. Of which salvation the prophets have 
inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied 
of the grace that should come unto you : searching 
what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ 
Avhich was in them did signify, when it testified the 
[beforehand] sufferings of Christ, and the glory that 
should follow. Unto whom it was revealed, that not 
unto* themselves, but unto us they did minister the 
things, which are now reported unto you by them 
that have preached the gospel unto you with the 
Holy Ghost sent down from heaven ; which things 
the angels desire to look into. Wherefore gird up the 
loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end 
for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the 
revelation of Jesus Christ ; " and much more to the 
same end, but this will suffice. We are glad that 
Peter knew so much ; and if we now know more it is 
because we have followed his advice, " Grow in the 
knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ ; " 
and feel that " so an entrance shall be ministered " 
unto us " abundantly into the everlasting kingdom 
of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ/' 



172 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



The next is Paul In introducing Paul's testi- 
mony we premise two things of him : first, that he 
was undoubtedly the clearest thinker of his age and 
dispensation ; and secondly, that, partly in consider- 
ation, as we suppose, of the extraordinary qualifica- 
tion, he was permitted to enter heaven, having a 
clear consciousness of personal identity, but not 
knowing whether he was in the body or not. We 
cannot presume to say whether he was in or out of 
the body, but we do know, or think we do, that he 
was in such condition of communication and cor- 
respondence with the spiritual world as exists, in 
course of nature, only after death, whether in the 
disembodied or reembodied state. And while we 
admit that the prime object of all this was not to 
impart prophetic knowledge, yet it was involved, 
and the plan of Christ's progressive kingdom was 
completely revealed, generally or minutely, accord- 
ing to the will and wisdom of God. 

From I Thess. i we learn that Paul assures 
believers of their election of God to the priv- 
ilege of waiting for his Son from heaven, who had 
already delivered us from the wrath to come, and 
(Eph. i, 14) " In whom we have obtained our inher- 
itance." From the second chapter we learn that 
his success with them is to be his " crown of rejoic- 
ing ... in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at 
his coming." The third chapter adds this feature 
to the coming of our Lord, that he will be accom- 
panied by " all his saints." The fourth chapter 
contains an explanation at length, of which this is 
the substance : " The Lord shall descend from 
heaven with a shout, with the voice of the arch- 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



1/3 



angel and the trump of God/ ' into our atmosphere, 
"And them which sleep in Jesus will God bring 
with him; " that is, the dead shall rise first and join 
him before the eyes of living men, when those who 
remain (being alive) " shall be caught up together 
with Him in the clouds, . . . and so shall we ever 
be with God." For what purpose? (2 Thess. 1.) 
To " rest," to " glorify," and to " admire ; " to enjoy 
the fulfillment of " God's pleasure in his goodness ; " 
to be glorified in Jesus; and (third chapter) to the 
obtaining of [his] glory, and the bearing of his image, 
(1 Cor. xv, 2-9), "incorruptible," "immortal," "vic- 
torious." 

Now let us return and see if we can bring up 
Paul's appreciation from a slightly different stand- 
point. There was no intermediate state with Paul ; 
u to depart " was to lk be with Christ " (immediately) ; 
and further, " For we know that if our earthly house 
[of this human body] were dissolved [in nature's 
dissolution], we have a building [a spiritual body 
framed] of God [as men build houses], "eternal in 
the heavens." " We groan being burdened, not for 
that we would be unclothed [left in naked spirit], 
but clothed upon [with the image of the heavenly]." 
,; We shall all be changed, . . . for this corruptible 
must put on incorruption," with our house " which 
is from heaven," " that mortality might be swal- 
lowed up of life." "This mortal must put on im- 
mortality,' ' that death may be "swallowed up in 
victory;" so, with, through, under, and upon these 
conditions " shall we ever be with the Lord." And 
now we would show the progressiveness even of this 
condition as Paul understood it: "Ye were sealed 



174 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the ear- 
nest of our inheritance until the redemption of the 
purchased possession" (Eph. i, 13, 14). The idea 
then is that, like Caleb, we receive and hold in re- 
version that which has not yet been subjugated. In 
this light of the subject we read, 4k Then cometh the 
end, . . . when he shall put down all rule, and all 
authority and power. For he must reign, till he 
hath put all enemies under his feet " (1 Cor. xv, 
24, 25V 

To the casual reader this passage conveys no 
idea ; nothing does ; but the careful reader will ask 
himself, What is this period, and probably how long, 
in which Jesus, having made his second advent and 
gathered his resurrected saints around him, under- 
takes with their assistance the subjugation of his 
enemies? A period in which and during which we 
are still living and still dying, u for the last enemy 
that shall be destroyed is death ; " evidently a period 
of strife and warfare, in which the redeemed are to 
be participators; ''And ye shall tread down the 
wicked ; for thev shall be ashes under the soles of 
your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the 
Lord of hosts" (Mai. iv, 3). 

Yet we are not to forget that it is to be a time 
of rest; the apostle says so. " To die is gain ; " he 
said that also. Therefore exalted as the privilege 
is of coming with Christ, of being with Christ, of 
being like Christ, nevertheless our condition must 
be susceptible of improvement, " that in the ages to 
come he [God] might show the exceeding riches of 
his grace in his kindness toward us through Jesus 
Christ." " That we may know what is the hope 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. I 75 



of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of 
his inheritance in the saints/' Progressively Paul 
says also, " from glory to glory." 

This is not exhaustive of Paul, but we have 
dwelt long enough, and will close with the appropri- 
ate climax : " Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, 
neither have entered into the mind of man, the 
things that God hath prepared for them that love 
him." 

And now, lastly, we consider the testimony of 
John. The stock of knowledge with which he en- 
tered upon his apostleship on the day of crucifixion 
was equally limited with that of the other disciples: 
" For as yet they knew not the Scripture, that he 
must rise again from the dead 99 (John xx, 9). And 
save in that shrewd perception at the Sea of Tibe- 
rias, " it is the Lord," we have no means of following 
up the development in the apostle's mind for many 
years. Following, therefore, the same line of 
thought as heretofore, we pursue in his Apocalypse 
the revelations made to him of heaven, and as far as 
may be his appreciation thereof. 

While we do not regard the first three chapters 
as apocalyptic, properly considered, yet they are so 
in that the rewards and punishments take hold on 
the far future. With these rewards we shall, there- 
fore, deal as the aggregated yield of the first three 
chapters. 

It is premised (i, 7) : "Behold he cometh with 
clouds ; and every eye shall see him, and they also 
which pierced him : and all kindreds of the earth 
shall wail because of him." This is comprehensive ; 
passing over the second advent — as indeed the whole 



176 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



Apocalypse does — it lays broadly the foundation of 
the rewards yet to be enjoyed by the finally faithful 
among the members of the seven churches, and may 
then be carried over with the weight of an absolute 
proposition into the Apocalypse itself. This much 
John appreciated. 

The first intimation of a beatific condition await- 
ing the faithful, is addressed to the church at 
Ephesus (ii, 7) : " To him that overcometh will I 
give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst 
of the paradise of God." 

The next double declaration is (ii, 10): " Be thou 
faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of 
life/' and (ii, 11) " He that overcometh shall not be 
hurt of the second death ; " these are antithetical. 
The "crown of life ' indicates a divine royalty that 
places the soul of the redeemed beyond the law of 
sin and death. 

The third is found (ii, 17): "To him that over- 
cometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and 
will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new 
name w r ritten, which no man knoweth saving he that 
receiveth it." A new name or title — divine knight- 
hood, with the appropriate jewel, and sacred cipher 
read by faith. 

The fourth (ii, 26-28) : " To him that overcometh, 
and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I 
give power over the nations : and he shall rule 
them with a rod of iron ; . . . and I will give him the 
morning star." The thing grows ; the vicegerency 
of Jesus Christ, with the badge of the morning, is 
no insignificant bestowment. 

The fifth (iii, 4, 5) : " They shall walk with me in 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



1/7 



white : for they are worthy. He that overcometh, 
the same shall be clothed in white raiment ; . . . and 
I will confess his name before my Father, and before 
his angels." "Then shall the righteous shine forth 
as the sun in the kingdom of their Father." " Well 
done, good and faithful servant ; enter thou into the 
joy of thy Lord," and he shall be introduced to God. 
" Blessed are the pure in heart : for they shall see 
God." 

The sixth (iii, 12) : " Him that overcometh will I 
make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall 
go no more out : and I will write upon him the 
name of my God, and the name of the city of my 
God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down 
out of heaven from my God : and I will write upon 
him my new name." Divine caryatides, immovable, 
impeccable, unchangeable ; polished, planted, in- 
scribed, and built upon of God. 

The seventh (iii, 20-22) : " To him that over- 
cometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, 
even as I also overcame, and am set down with my 
Father in his throne." 

" Truly our fellowship is with the Father, and 
with his Son Jesus Christ" (1 John i, 3); " Heirs 
of God, and joint heirs with Christ " (Rom. viii, 17). 

There is a reiterative indorsement of each of 
these promises in the close of the Apocalypse ; and 
the reader will observe that they constitute an 
extended climax, beginning with the first right for- 
feited in Eden, the right to eat of the tree of life, 
which also was in the midst of the garden, and end- 
ing where the imagination ends, at the throne of 
God. And further, that in the nature of things 
12 



i;8 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



each promise must belong to all and all promises to 
each. The saints of God may, therefore, universally 
make up this schedule of their inheritance : 

1. Immortality with Christ. 

2. Immunity with Christ. 

3. Communion with Christ. 

4. Joint administration with Christ. 

5. Personal association with Christ. 

6. Potential participation with Christ. 

7. Royal prerogatives with Christ. 

Can it be possible that we were born again, heirs 
to such prospects — prerogative royalty with the Son 
of God ? 'Tis more than thought can reach or 
tongue can tell. Surely, John by inspiration must 
have exhausted himself ; we must look and see. 

As John deals in the apocalypse proper chiefly 
with the relations of heaven and earth, we will 
touch upon the salient points with brief comments 
and close. 

The first is found in the fifth chapter tenth verse, 
where the redeemed of every nation praise Christ 
for having made them kings and priests, and de- 
clare, though then in heaven, " we shall reign on 
the earth ; " and as it occurs in the beginning of the 
apocalyptic period, it may be well in this connec- 
tion to refer to another passage (xx, 4), where this 
reign is again referred to as being on the earth and 
for a period of one thousand years, universally ad- 
mitted to be the millennium. Between these two 
in point of time, and related intimately to the sec- 
ond, is that passage found in vi, 9-1 1, where the 
disembodied souls of the martyrs, being in heaven, 
complain that their blood is not required of wicked 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 1 79 



men still living on the earth, and are soothed with 
promises to be fulfilled when the remaining mar- 
tyrs, not yet slain, shall be added to the list. 

Again, related to the foregoing is xiv, 13, where, 
immediately preceding the harvest and the vin- 
tage, " a voice from heaven " says, " Blessed [from 
henceforth] are the dead which die in the Lord " 
[because they], "rest from their labors, and their 
works do follow them." The obvious reason why 
they will be blessed from that time forward is that 
heaven is so nigh, in point of time and fact, the rest 
so near, the reward so visible, the fire-tested works 
so close upon their heels. 

As we are dealing with the relations which, here- 
after, will obtain between heaven and earth, we 
would call your attention to xiv, 3, where the one 
hundred and forty-four thousand on Mount Zion 
are the subjects of the angelic hymn in such manner 
that they only could appreciate the song impro- 
vised for the occasion. Here the choristers of 
heaven sing of men standing on the earth, and these 
men hear and appreciate their song. And this 
naturally carries us back to their enrollment (vii, 4), 
the date of which is not easy to determine. But 
the most remarkable feature in the chapter is that 
whereas this takes place on earth the next men- 
tioned incident takes place in heaven, "A great 
multitude which no man could number stood before 
the throne ; " nevertheless, their ultimate beatifica- 
tion is to take place on the earth ; " They shall hun- 
ger no more, neither thirst any more ; neither shall 
the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb 
which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, 



i8o 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters : 
and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." 
See xxi, 4-6. 

That the relations between heaven and earth 
during the whole apocalyptic period are most inti- 
mate none can deny ; but is it not deducible from 
Revelation that the kingdom of Christ is ultimately 
transferred from heaven to earth? See xi, 15. 
After the " kingdoms of this world are become the 
kingdoms of Christ," shall he not, on this earth, 
" reign forever and ever ? " 

There are three consecutive propositions in the 
twenty-first chapter, with the consideration of which 
we close. First (xxi, 1) : u I saw a new heaven and 
a new earth ; for the first heaven and the first earth 
were passed away ; and there was no more sea." 
Second (xxi, 2) : i% I John saw the holy city, new 
Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven." 
It is evident that the former earth, with its firma- 
ment, had passed away, giving place to a new earth, 
without sea, down upon which the new Jerusalem 
now descends. Third (xxi, 3) : "Behold, the taber- 
nacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with 
them, and they shall be his people, and God himself 
shall be with them, and be their God." 

These establish the transfer, and are succeeded 
by declarations as to the eternal condition that is 
to follow. The substance of which is this : Death 
and decay, pain in them, and regrets over them shall 
have passed away as things to be remembered no 
more, for God, who is the beginning and the end, 
will have made all things new. New elements, new 
causes, new conditions, all working out their legiti- 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



mate results, according to the perfection of God's 
work, unmarred by sin ; and the source of the per- 
petuity of life, with all which that life implies, will 
then be abundant and free, and he who has com- 
plied with the one condition of final perseverance 
will be the inheritor of all things. 

This, then, is a summary of the things we have 
learned : Heaven is the immediate but temporary 
home of the disembodied spirits, has been such from 
Adam, and will be till Christ comes again ; " in [his] 
Father's house are many mansions." From that 
time till the final resurrection, judgment, and end 
of all things, the resurrected, reembodied saints of 
Christ will be with him " in the air," " before the 
throne in heaven,'* " on Mount Zion," in the " camps 
of the saints," wherever Christ may be or call them. 

During the long period they will be assisting 
Christ to " prepare a place for them." This being 
over, the remodeled earth is to be their dwelling 
place forever and ever, the " kingdom prepared [in- 
tended for them] from the foundation of the 
world." 

" Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus." 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



PICTURE V. 

(Chapters x and xi.) 

PICTURE V embraces chapters x and xi. We 
are now reading consecutive history after the 
manner of the Apocalypse. Important changes are 
at hand. Thirteen or fourteen hundred years, we 
suppose, have elapsed. In the fourth picture and 
ninth chapter two of the three plagues denominated 
" woes 99 by the angel have been visited upon men. 
The wickedness of man has reached its maximum 
point. The angel of the bottomless pit having been 
permitted to scourge men in the fierceness of his 
malice (chap, ix, i-li), has now allied himself with 
sinful men against Christ's army, arguing, perhaps, 
that God had turned loose upon them the resur- 
rected Chaldeans, and urging them to ally them- 
selves with him against God. This attempt against 
God and his Christ, a fateful though not a final one, 
is to be immediately succeeded by the millennium, 
that glorious antipast of the world's final change. 

Of this millennium little is said circumstantially 
in Revelation, but it constitutes part of the " mys- 
tery of God," " declared to his servants the proph- 
ets/' Historically it appears in the last verse of the 
eleventh chapter, where the temple of God and the 
ark of his testament, opened to view, reveal the 
changed relation between heaven and earth. De- 
scriptively it appears in chap, xx, 5-7, and in these 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



183 



words especially, " But they shall be priests of God, 
and of his Christ, and shall reign with him a thou- 
sand years. " But we pass it by, because it is only 
valuable to us now for its epochal relation. Of this 
the angel, no doubt, speaks, for this thousand years 
was a part of time, and that " little season " during 
which the devil must be loosed will also be a part 
of time — we think about one hundred and seventy 
years — but what is a decade of centuries with God? 
The moral end was well-nigh achieved, " the king- 
doms of this world [were] to become the kingdoms 
of our Lord, and of his Christ," * as they never be- 
fore had been. 

How great this angel must have been ! To which 
of the " principalities " of Christ's creative power 
did he belong? Was he Gabriel ? There is a tend- 
ency, in some directions, to merge all archangel- 
ism into Christ, but the subordinate relation of this 
great one, who set one foot upon the land and one 
upon the sea, is made clear, for when he had fin- 
ished his commissioned declaration the divine voice 
quietly utters directions which he is prompt to 
obey. " He who had created heaven, and the 
things that therein are," he who was the creator of 
" thrones and dominions," who is the beginning 
" that in all things he might have the preeminence," 
does not permit himself to be blended with, or 
merged into, his creatures. Whatever led men to 
think of such a thing! 

At this point we ought, perhaps, to say what can 
be said of the " little book " (that is, roll). Little, 
because little remains to be said, open because its 
* Chap, x, 1. • 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



revelations were to be clearly made and intelli- 
gently appreciated. It was the prophetic book ; 
sweet in the speaker's mouth, bitter to his inmost 
soul ; in the persuasiveness of his mouth 14 a savor 
of life unto life ; " in the appreciations of his soul, " a 
savor of death unto death." But let not the reader 
suppose that John is acquainted with the contents 
of that book. It is true he ate it in the pantomime, 
signifying that he shall some time (in modern phrase) 
devour its contents, but the knowledge of what it 
contained is, doubtless, withheld till the time when 
his testimony shall be founded on what is therein 
written. He gives us no account of what the 
thunders uttered, because it was prohibited; none 
of what the book contained, because it was with- 
held. The little book is still to do its work, for it 
will be observed as a marvel to the skeptical that 
this angel tells John of a period more than three 
thousand years after his decease, probably more 
than one thousand after his resurrection, " Thou 
must prophesy again before many peoples and na- 
tions and tongues and kings." 

At this point John is appointed to the office of 
civil surveyor, to measure the temple, the abode of 
God and the reserved precincts of his worship, 
leaving all without to the encroachment of his 
enemies ; for without this declaration in the omnis- 
cient records the succeeding age might be appalled 
to see Jesus beleaguered in his capital by the howl- 
ing hosts of sin pressing to the very walls of his 
sacred citadel. When the angel had declared that 
the Gentiles should tread the holy city under foot 
forty-two months, the dissolving views change sud- 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



185 



denly, the thing is being enacted, and the voice 
solemnly announces (leave out the conjunction), " I 
will give power unto my two witnesses." It maybe 
the amazed John needed this encouragement, when 
in the prophetic picture he sees himself step down 
with his comrade witness into a surging, angry 
host, such as he had never encountered in his then 
existing life. The same calm, potential voice that 
all the way through proclaims the master of cere- 
monies and the owner of premises, now proceeds to 
bridge the coming space by the declaration that 
their preaching shall be coextensive with the siege 
(forty-two months), twelve hundred and sixty days. 
John then proceeds as to a witnessing auditory to 
explain the pictorial representation ; hence the 
changes in tense which certainly continue to the 
close of the thirteenth verse. He opens with the 
inspired declaration, " These are the two olive trees 
and the two candlesticks standing before the God 
of the earth/' See Zechariah, fourth chapter. And 
the dispassionate manner in which he speaks of what 
must have seemed to him then like his second self, 
reminds us forcibly of the manner in which he 
ignores the first personal pronoun in his gospel 
history. And this brings us to the oft-repeated 
question, " Who are the witnesses ? " or rather, Who 
is the remaining one? a question assuredly not diffi- 
cult to answer, for the predicted coming of Elijah 
by Malachi in these w r ords, " Behold, I will send 
you Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the 
great and dreadful day," was but partly fulfilled 
when another man so like him heralded the first 
appearing of the Son of God, of whom Jesus said, 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



" This is Elijah which was to come ; " but Elijah is 
still to come, and to come just before " the coming 
of the great and dreadful day/* We admit there is 
contingency in the last words of Malachi, and just 
that contingency there will be in the words of John 
and Elijah ; but in Revelation there is no contingency, 
for it is a declaration of the end as known to God 
from the beginning. In the remainder of this chap- 
ter we have a statement of the wonderful power 
with which those sackcloth-clad witnesses were in- 
vested, but not of how they will use it ; of how the 
beast — not yet introduced into the pictures — shall 
by his great power overcome them and seem to kill 
them, although in their essential nature they are 
immortal ; how the wicked will rejoice and send 
gifts. "And after three days and a half the Spirit 
of life from God entered into them, and they stood 
upon their feet ; and great fear fell upon those 
which saw them. And they heard a great voice 
from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. 
And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud ; and 
their enemies beheld them." The agency of the 
Holy Ghost is once more introduced ; and their as- 
cension reminds us very forcibly of that which oc- 
curred very near the same spot four thousand years 
before, a cloud also receiving them out of sight, as 
it had done the ascending Son of man. 

Then follows the earthquake and sudden death 
of " seven thousand," and the consternation or con- 
version, or both, of the remainder, spoken of as a 
" remnant," all going to show that the besieging 
host was small, while from the prophecy we gather 
that it was in the highest degree representative. 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



I8 7 



Now the last preaching has been done for a world 
so evidently "lying in the wicked one," effectively 
done through the number that was coming and going, 
and the presence and preaching of the " witnesses " 
has been a sore trial to the devil and his emissaries, 
until at last the presence and power of the arch 
fiend himself is demanded. As we are now in the 
midst of the woes, we would call attention to them 
and their coincidences. In the four plagues of the 
first four trumpets men's lives were not involved 
except incidentally or consequently. But so much 
more severe are the sufferings of the ensuing three 
that an angel is detailed to announce that fact 
(viii, 13), " Woe, woe, woe," etc. 

These three woes have the following cumulative 
and circumstantial characteristics : The first (ix, 
1-11), coinciding with the fifth trumpet, was the 
outcome of the bottomless pit, strong as horses, in- 
telligent as men, combining the vindictiveness of 
women with the ferocity of beasts, and countless as 
the locusts ; they punished with agony, but not 
death, and for the limited space of five months. 
Whatever this singular figure may mean its force 
lies in that it is not the agency of bad men, but of 
things essentially diabolical, and Satan or Apollyon 
inflicts these plagues out of pure hatred to the hu- 
man race, and, as all things essentially evil must be 
inflicted, by divine permission. 

The second woe (ix, 12-19) coincides with the sixth 
trumpet (compare ix, 12, 13, with xi, 14). Its quali- 
ties seem to be derived from the fierceness and cruelty 
of Israel's ancient enemies, whose principal leaders 
the four angels no doubt represent, who now seem to 



188 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



add the terrors of hell to the bad qualities they 
originally possessed, and whose retributive function 
it was to slay the third part of mankind during a 
period of thirteen months and (perhaps) twenty-five 
hours. The cumulative quality is shown here in 
that they inflict death, and nearly treble the time 
of the first. 

The third woe would seem to commence with 
the destruction of the seven thousand by the earth- 
quake (xi, 13), to have continued until the destruc- 
tion of Babylon was embraced (xvi, 17-19), and 
perhaps until the dread battle of Armageddon 
closed that woe (compare xvi, 21, with xix, 19-21); 
for who can tell how rapidly these calamities suc- 
ceeded one another. The same earthquake and the 
same hail seem to have accomplished the combined 
results. And the third woe seems to have come 
into coincidence with the sounding of the seventh 
trumpet (xi, 1 5). The cumulative character is shown 
here in that the destruction of guilty Babylon ex- 
ceeds, in the extent of what it involved, all that 
had gone before, while the wholesale and over- 
whelming destruction of the w r icked in the battle 
of Armageddon stands out in diversified prophecy 
as the great and culminating woe. 

On the remainder of the chapter we have only 
these comments to make : First, that in the infinite 
wisdom of God he taketh to himself his great power 
according to his will, wisdom, and unchangeable 
purposes, as Daniel truly says, "at the appointed 
time." Secondly, that the judging of the dead here 
referred to is not to be confounded with the judg- 
ment of the last day or with the judgment of the 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 1 89 

wicked at all. The class here referred to are those 
disembodied souls who, in vi, 9-1 1, plead for judg- 
ment upon living men. Thirdly, that the much 
controverted and little understood question of sys- 
tematic reward for comparative fidelity is here made 
clear — salvation is simple amnesty — the distribution 
of reward is the work of the millennium. Further- 
more, the whole Church is classified with reference 
to these rewards: first 44 servants," comprehensively, 
divided into " prophets," old dispensation; " saints," 
ne\v # dispensation, both dead; and "them that fear 
thy name," living, both "small and great" — from 
the highest range to the lowest level inside the fam- 
ily of God in Christ. Fourthly, the destruction of the 
" cumberers of the ground." Lastly, the chronology 
of the fifteenth chapter seems to be completed here, 
for the temple there described as " the temple of the 
tabernacle of the testimony " (xv, 5), and not accessi- 
ble up to that time, is now thrown open and " the ark 
of the testament" is visible within. Whatever may 
have been the relation between the symbolic plans 
and purposes of a past dispensation, it is revealed, 
carried out, consummated in the then existing time, 
and there is something very significant in the fact 
that the new condition of things on earth procures 
the opening of " the temple of God in heaven," 
token of intercommunicable relations between 
heaven and earth, between the unfallen seraph and 
the reinstated soul. 



l 9° 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



Abstract Treatise. 

THE MILLENNIUM. 

What? Whe7i? How? Why? 

THE most marked feature in the much talked of 
but little understood millennium has never claimed 
and cannot yet be grateful to popular attention. 
We will not, therefore, at the outset declare war 
against such prejudices, but, waiting for future de- 
velopments, proceed on lines of popular thought to 
answer the question, What? 

A thousand years' rest for the world, a thousand 
years' " let up 99 in providential punishment, and a 
thousand years' respite from the reactionary laws of 
depravity. A thousand years' simultaneous truce in 
all war between the spirit and the flesh, between 
man and man, between God and the devil. Rejoice, 
O ye inhabitants of the earth ; re-echo our rejoicings, 
O ye children of the skies ! A thousand years will 
Satan be bound, says Holy Writ ; a thousand years 
shall we have peace on earth, responds the universal 
heart of man. 

Sin, as a condition, continues ; sinning, as an 
overt action, ceases. Sickness, weakness, weariness, 
and pain will be unknown ; they are the fruits of 
sin, and in the Millennium sin is not permitted to 
show blossom or bear fruit. Envy, fear, shame, re- 
morse, and disappointment will be felt no more ; 
they are the offspring of depravity, and depravity 
will not be suffered to bring forth in the millennial 
world. Death is the product of sin, being its tern- 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 191 

poral result ; therefore death, in relation to sin, 
cannot enter there. " The inhabitants never say we 
are sick ; " the saints may die or be translated ; the 
wicked cannot die. The child that is born into the 
Millennium will slowly develop ; according to the 
then existing laws of life, " There shall be no more 
[carried out] an infant of days, nor an old man that 
hath not fulfilled his days, for the child shall die a 
hundred years old, but the sinner a hundred years 
old shall be accursed," but not die. 

It is a time of sowing and of reaping, " but they 
shall not plant and another eat " they shall plant 
vineyards and eat the fruit of them ; " " they shall 
not build and another inhabit it ; " " they shall long 
enjoy the work of their hands." A time of building 
houses, but the poor man shall not build for himself 
and the extortioner inhabit it; " they shall not 
labor in vain;" a time of buying and selling; of 
abundant commerce ; but this among John Wesley's 
rules will be observed, u there will be few words 
about buying and selling." Men will " eat " and 
"drink" and " sing," but not " weep." The peace- 
ful dominion inaugurated in Eden shall obtain at 
last ; there will be no poison in the fang of the 
viper, no scent of blood to lure the tiger, no rot- 
ting dead to tempt the jackal ; no ferocity shall lead 
the bear to rend or the wolf to raven in the fold. 
The sting of the hornet and the scorpion, the wasp 
and the humble bee shall be unscabbarded no more ; 
no insect can inflict his little stab ; no vermin gloat 
upon his drop of blood. 

Where will the " red horse " be ? He galloped 
over the land of Shinar, through the vale of Sid- 



192 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



dim, over the hills of Moab, over and over the plain 
of Esdraelon ; through the rock-cleft pass where 
Spartans fought ; over the sands of Marathon, with 
Miltiades ; over the meadows of Pharsalia, alike 
with Pompey's cavalry and Caesar's cohorts ; fol- 
lowed the crescent, followed the cross ; wore the 
white rose, wore the red ; butchered the Aztecs, 
butchered the Huguenots ; bounded over Bunker 
Hill, bathed in Braddock's defeat ; left bloody 
footprints on the snow at Yorktown ; threw his 
iron hoofs into the face of warring brothers at Ma- 
nassas ; thundered his way through the wheat 
fields of Gettysburg, but slackened speed a moment 
under the apple tree at Appomattox. Where is he ? 
The swords are beaten into plowshares, the spears 
into pruning hooks, the munitions of war are gone, 
the volunteer drill has ceased, men learn the art of 
war no more. The red horse is stabled near where 
the red dragon is bound a thousand years. 

First question, What is the Millennium? A 
mingling of seedtime and harvest, when the sower 
shall overtake the reaper, " when thorns shall point 
a moral or adorn a tale," shall punctuate past periods 
of history and live in the story of the cross, but 
wound no more the bare feet of the farmer's boy 
nor render vain the labor of his hands. It is the 
long, long summer evening's harvest-time of earth, 
the world maturing to completion, fruiting e'er she 
dies. 

It is a time when God will vindicate himself by 
making the world as if no sin had marred its beauty, 
perfect in all its appointments ; in all the realm of 
nature there can be no lack and no redundancy. 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. I93 



There can be no imperfect or mutilated forms of men, 
no lame, no blind, no deaf, no dumb. " Then the 
eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of 
the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame 
man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb 
sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, 
and streams in the desert " (Isa. xxxv). There shall 
be neither sorrow nor regret ; " they shall obtain 
joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall 
flee away." 

Second question, When ? We answer the ques- 
tion ; no one need feel any hesitation in putting the 
beginning of the Millennium within twelve hundred 
years of the end of all temporal things. We meas- 
ure the duration of the millennium by the period of 
Satan's incarceration, and the relation of that 
period to other events enables us to locate the mil- 
lennium, as to its beginning and end, and say, 
when ? Satan is chained at the close of Armaged- 
don, which marks its beginning ; while at the close 
of the millennium he is liberated for the so-called 
" little season." He then proceeds at once to stir up 
disaffection, to enroll recruits, to organize his sub- 
millennial army, and come up against the " camp of 
the saints" " as the sand of the sea ; " and the " con- 
sumation determined " (Dan. ix, 27) is wrought in 
" fire which comes down from heaven and devours 
them." The " little season M seems to be less than 
two hundred years, which is a " little " period indeed 
as compared with any of the extended ones that 
have preceded it. 

The idea obtains in some minds apparently that 
the millennium comes after the destruction of the 
13 



194 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



world by fire ; but we have no time here to consider 
any theories not founded on the word of God. A 
more generally prevailing error, and a more excus- 
able one, is that it will immediately succeed the 
second coming of the Son of man. This idea finds no 
warrant in the word of God, but is born of man's 
limited views and knowledge in the premises and 
general, and exceedingly finite, impatience which 
would hurry God rapidly from epoch to epoch, forget- 
ful that " one day is with the Lord as a thousand years 
and a thousand years as one day." The slow and 
gradual developments of the past, together w r ith the 
successiveness and progressiveness of the prophetic 
future, should teach us at least as much as the an- 
cient heathen knew, namely, " The mills of God 
grind slowly." To assume that the second coming 
of the Saviour is introductory to the millennium is 
to blot out at one stroke all the prophetically histori- 
cal part of the Apocalypse save that which treats of 
the millennial period, which is the least part of it. 

We return to our question, When ? When Christ 
shall have achieved that quiet advent wherein " one 
is taken and another left," and before he " shall be 
revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in 
flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know 
not God." When ? When all the scriptural scourg- 
ings of the sinful world shall have passed, with such 
periods between as analogy, probation, equity, free 
will may demand, and before fire comes down con- 
sistent with analogy, probation, equity, and free 
will to blot out the finally impenitent from off the 
earth's fair face. When ? When the plagues, none 
of w r hich antedate the coming of the Son of man, 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



195 



shall culminate in the trampling out of sin on the 
earth by the white-robed hosts of heaven, and before 
the innumerable hordes of Gog and Magog shall 
gather from the regions still beyond and move down 
upon the citadel of God, the capital of Christ. 
When ? When man has suffered the reward and the 
result of sin from Adam to Armageddon, and God 
declares a truce that the millions of men then 
living may consider his offer of eternal amnesty in 
Jesus Christ. When? Why, then shall be and 
that shall be man's millennial opportunity to make 
his peace with God. 

Third question, How ? We will have to go back 
to the sequence of the fall and the results of de- 
pravity. Man sinned in his spirit, yet no curse was 
pronounced upon his spirit ; it came under the re- 
prieve and was made amenable to the Purchaser, 
the Lord Jesus Christ ; but the body of the man, 
together with all living creatures appertaining to 
the earth itself, with all its chemical constituency 
and surrounding atmosphere, came under the curse. 
The corresponding condition of the spirit was that 
of depravity (as we have heard it rendered, non- 
potentiality of good), the downward tendency of all 
moral things under the self-imposed law of moral 
gravitation, " And God saw that the wickedness of 
man was great in the earth, and that every imagina- 
tion of the thoughts of his heart was only evil con- 
tinually " (Gen. vi, 5). The forfeiture was very 
great, the petted child of fortune fell out of his 
patrimonial estate and became a prospective heir to 
conditional reversion at his majority. 

The conditions were severe ; the aid was great. 



ig6 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



Conscience, providence, and law came to his aid ; he 
had made a fearful plunge and was at the bottom ; 
'twas uphill business to return. Two ways were open 
to him : straight through his consciousness ; round 
about by way of his ratiocination. No one can say 
he has not risen wonderfully from the depths of his 
lowest degradation to the height of his present at- 
tainment from troglodyte to erudite, from barbarian 
to metaphysician. We know there are those who 
deny " original sin " and " total depravity/' With 
them we can appropriately close the argument. 
They are the crowning evidence of the proposition 
they deny, and they will serve as illustrations with 
which to introduce the second feature in this ex- 
tended premise. 

The resultant activities of this depravity are two- 
fold : the first growing out of that passional energy 
which is the latent force of the human character 
which is chiefly directed toward evil, under the rule, 
and cannot be otherwise directed except by regen- 
eration ; the other the impelling and propelling power 
of an independent spirit from without ; that is, the 
devil. Granting that this almost ubiquitous spirit of 
evil is as perceptively persistent as he is consistently 
malignant, it is easy to understand how the fan- 
ning of passional flame is propulsion, and how amid 
the stress of currents and of winds, of waves and 
storms, it impels with persistency and drives with 
power. 

Now we are prepared to answer the question, 
How ? The curse is lifted from the earth and all its 
appertainments, and the author and originator of all 
sin is locked up. There is little need to debate or 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. I97 



compare. The word of God is the only authority 
we recognize, and the word of God says, " The world 
lieth in the wicked one," who is the " father of lies," 
or, if you please, the author of sin ; that he was sub- 
tle in his approaches to Eve, fierce in his enmity 
to human kind, u going about as a roaring lion 
seeking whom he may devour;" that he would 
have devoured the infant Christ ; that he persecutes 
the Church of Christ only the more bitterly as she 
rises on her " great wings ; " that he is the false, per- 
sistent, cowardly accuser of good men, bathed in 
the blood of their martyrdom, red with the fires of 
perpetual persecution ; beaten of conflicting angels ; 
defeated by the Son of man ; nevertheless, the power 
of the grave, the potentate of death, the king of the 
bottomless pit, the prince of the powers of the air, 
the resident of darkness, and the ruler of this world. 
It says further that he was the author of blasphe- 
my and lying against the Holy Ghost, the cause of 
the crucifixion, bruising the innocent children of the 
converted woman ; binding the sick, driving the 
possessed into the fire, contending for the bodies of 
the dead ; the director of wicked spirits in high 
places. " He was a murderer from the beginning," 
and will meet with God's capital punishment by and 
by ; but in the millennium is bound with chains and 
put under hatches like the leader of a mutiny at sea. 

If, therefore, Satan is removed out of the world 
what will be the result ? His work must go with 
him, consequently predisposition to sin must go, for 
it is part of his primal work ; whereas preoccupation 
of sin, and persistent determination to remain in sin, 
cannot, for that would be the coercion of the will. 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



Subordination to law, in the absence of incentives 
and agencies to the contrary, is a native quality in 
man ; otherwise discipline w T ould lose its force. Chil- 
dren born in the millennium will be free from he- 
reditary taint and predetermination toward evil, 
and their exemption will extend to its close. There 
will be no reactionary envy or stimulated hate to 
turn man against man. We must not forget to what 
wonderful knowledge man will then have attained, 
far beyond our present comprehension, and that he 
will be constitutionally well disposed toward men, 
whose universal kindness he must feel. Obedient 
to authority because there is nothing to excite his 
insubordination, a law-abiding being whose thought 
and .purpose are measurably subject to external law, 
he will be, evidently, and for these reasons, a good 
subject for a good government. 

So much for man's relief from the active embodi- 
ment of sin outside of himself. Now briefly as to 
his personal condition and natural surroundings. 
The curse is lifted from the earth. The necessity 
lies on him no more to " eat his bread in the sweat 
of his face." He will labor, henceforward, for the 
reward of his labor, which is divinely guaranteed ; 
" he shall not plant and another eat ;" his natural 
surroundings are those of absolute peace and cease- 
less prosperity. 

His " personal condition " is wonderfully changed, 
physically and morally. He need never be weary, 
he can never be sick. Poverty is impossible, and if 
he suffer any pain it is only in the penalty imme- 
diately attached to nature's laws. Morally the de- 
pravity is taken out of his heart ; he has no active 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



enmity toward God or man. When the bugle of 
the white horse commander sounded truce he ceased 
to be an enemy as well in feeling as in fact ; not 
that his inherent condition or essential relation is 
changed ; it is not. If he were a soldier of the 
cross before then his voluntary affiliation is still in 
force ; if he was not, then he still is not, but is the 
passive partisan of a dead cause, the silent adherent 
of an absentee. He is an unsaved (Isaiah says 
" accursed ") sinner, but overt sin he has little dis- 
position, and no temptation, to commit ; and if he 
has such disposition he will infallibly be anticipated 
and prevented in the commission, for the unswerv- 
ing government of Christ and resurrected men will 
be administered " with a rod of iron." And this 
brings us to the last answering feature under the 
question, " How ? " 

This last means to the end is the absolutely per- 
fect, because presently divine, administration of the 
millennial government. It is evident, from the his- 
tory of Adam to that of Saul, that the modes of 
government, devised by God for man were theo- 
cratic, adumbrating the ultimate kingdom of Christ, 
of which there will be no end. But the millennial 
reign is not to be confounded, although Christ calls 
it " the throne of his glory,' ' with that eternal reign 
which succeeds the marriage of the Church and 
the Lamb, beginning with the seventh period of 
eternal rest, where revelation leaves off. No, the 
millennial government which begins on the earth 
some twelve hundred years before the judgment is 
a very different thing, and for a very different pur- 
pose, as we shall endeavor to show. But our busi- 



200 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



ness now is to answer the question, How ? It will 
be administered by the Lord Jesus in person. Com- 
pare Isa. xi, i-io, with Rev. xx, 6. He will be as- 
sisted in the administration by the apostles (see 
Luke xxii, 28-30, compared with Rev. xx, 4, first 
clause), and further assisted by all the resurrected 
righteous. Compare 1 Cor. vi, 2, 3, with Rev. xx, 6, 
and Rev. v, 10, and for further confirmation com- 
pare Rev. ii, 26, 27, with Rev. iii, 21. From these 
several passages compared we learn that Christ will 
" reign " (Matt, xix, 28, " in the throne of his 
glory ") ; that " to his ensign shall the Gentiles seek/' 
and that " his rest shall be glorious," that the apos- 
tles shall sit on subordinate " thrones," judging 
(governing) " the twelve tribes of Israel." We find 
no distinction between Jew and Gentile after the 
millennium ; that to others there is allotted a de- 
gree of participation, " a grant to sit with him in his 
throne," " a bestowment of power over the nations." 
What a government this will be over a world-wide 
municipality, where the millions of the resurrected, 
seen or unseen, walk by each living man, all seeing 
themselves and changeless in their purpose — the 
glory of God ! Great power was never safely given 
to any living man, but to these who, like Christ, 
were dead and are alive again, " power " is given to 
" rule the nations with a rod of iron," " to dash them 
in pieces [metaphorically] like a potter's vessel." 
From these passages we also learn that this reign 
will be u on the earth," and that it will last "a 
thousand years." This, then, is a synopsis or sum- 
ming up of our answer to the question, How? By 
removing disabilities within, by removing disadvan- 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 201 



tages without, by imprisoning the sole disturber 
of personal purity and public peace, and finally by 
subjecting the world so far advanced in method and 
intelligence to the only spotless, perfect govern- 
ment it ever knew. 

Fourth question, Why? While the purpose of 
God in this extended episode in the world's history 
has not been revealed directly to us, it is as much 
an open secret as the purpose of the creation, the ori- 
gin of sin, or the philosophy of the redemption. A 
more extended investigation of the whole subject 
would put this matter in a clearer light, but within 
the scope of this essay there is enough for the rea- 
sonable and devout. We assume that God in his 
nature and for his equity's sake will do all that can 
be done to save man, leaving his justice unimpeach- 
able, his government without reproach. 

What God's original purpose was is matter of 
conjecture, but the reasonable conclusion is that the 
course of the unfallen man would have been onward 
and upward ; that his Eden would have been ex- 
tended, his sphere enlarged, his nature etherealized, 
and his relations with heaven progressively familiar; 
that he would have grown up into Christ, his liv- 
ing head, by aspiration, appreciation, assimilation, 
until in the course of ages he attained to the " meas- 
ure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;" that 
both he and his earth would have improved on the 
paradisaical condition till the world and its inhabit- 
ants would have reached by appreciation the eternal 
perfection which can now be reached only by trans- 
lation or resurrection and transmutation. 

God begins with a simple test. Satan tempted 



202 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



and man fell. And the next thing in point of time 
or course of events is manifestly the redemption of 
the whole by Jesus Christ. The philosophy of that 
suspension under which we live is not hard to un- 
derstand ; the whole is redeemed, but not renewed ; 
the redemption was coextensive with the love of 
God, the regeneration of the earth broad as God's 
ownership, the salvation of souls limited as man's 
conditional faith. 

When man fell he manifestly fell on a divine pro- 
vision ; not that he would necessarily have died a 
natural death on the spot, for that was no part of 
the penalty ; neither does it follow that a complete 
failure in the possible progressiveness of the plan 
would have resulted in the abrupt discontinuance 
of any of the forms of life or relations of things, the 
development of which had gradually fitted the earth 
for man's dwelling place. Man's probation was not 
only prolonged, but as, notwithstanding the depre- 
ciative shock of the curse upon the earth and later 
of the deluge that overwhelmed it, there continued 
to be an average progressiveness, and as there was 
provision made in the earth's development to meet 
the wants of man under his existing disabilities, 
therefore it is reasonable to conclude that provi- 
sion had already been made in the omniscient coun- 
cils and divine plan for the failure of one method 
and introduction of another. 

Adam was created heir to universal dominion 
over the earth, which was his rapidly appreciating 
patrimony. He fell, and thanks to God's presence 
as well as his goodness, fell upon the merciful pro- 
visions of the redemption in Christ Jesus. How 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



203 



extended and slowly evolving these provisions are 
the whole extent of time alone can show. 

The antediluvian world proved unequal to their 
opportunities, and so perished. The elected Jews 
proved unworthy of their prerogative, and notwith- 
standing all the aid divine partiality could give, 
they fell into a forfeiture we cannot appreciate and 
into a suspension we cannot understand. The Sav- 
iour was revealed (we might say), nevertheless, and 
in his life and death and resurrection introduced a 
new period, and left those " called to be saints" to 
preach Jesus and the resurrection. Waywardly, 
imperfectly, irregularly, the Christian world has 
met the demand of its highest mission. 

Will the present agencies accomplish the evan- 
gelization of the earth ? Is Anglo-Saxon civilization 
to be the ultimate civilization of the world? are the 
important questions of the day. Let me assure a 
reading, thinking public that according to the 
record, the millennium is to find the world full of 
sin and to leave it full of sin. Till this is under- 
stood nothing in the connection can be understood. 

But still we meet the question Why? and an- 
swer, As the last experiment. Ministers are often 
moved and move others with the consideration that 
they are ministering to some soul the last appeal of 
mercy through the forbearance of God, the last 
overture of goodness, the last experiment of grace. 
Such, on a larger scale, is the experiment of the mil- 
lennium, and, so far as the Gentile world is concerned, 
nothing else. To that tree, whose branches were 
broken off that we might be grafted in, it has a 
tremendous interest peculiar to themselves, but we 



204 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



have carefully forborne to speak of the restoration, 
and still forbear. 

The earth on which Satan brought the curse, and 
of whose pomp and glory he said, " All these are 
mine, and to whomsoever I will I give them," is 
wrenched from his grasp at Armageddon and par- 
tially remodeled, for it is never to be his again. 
" Jesus Christ came into the world to destroy the 
works of the devil," therefore the earth will be at 
this time a reconquered province with the arch- 
enemy in chains, disaffection still lingering in the 
midst. I know not by the operation of what law 
God w r ill work out the natural revolution. It may 
be the earth's axis will fall into its perpendicular 
again, and then along the lines that God appoints 
for human habitation no sun of summer solstice will 
blister with its heat ; no wintry blast will still the 
feebly throbbing pulse of any living thing; no 
scorching breath of hot sirocco sift the arid sands 
over continents again ; no latest frost's untimely 
grip congeal the white blood of the tender grape 
and fig, and make the ravished garden and the out- 
raged field stare grimly at the tiller of the soil ; no 
lava-reeking maw of hot volcano will belch its 
liquid fire on earth's fair face again, the plowshare 
of the husbandman will turn the rich fallow where 
it stood, its ashes mingling with the mellow soil. 
All nature will be peace, all earth productive, 
all skies propitious, and all of life's relations all 
that heart could wish. "The sun shall not smite 
by day nor the moon by night," " The beasts of the 
earth shall be at peace with [man]," u and he shall 
have dominion over them ; 99 " They shall not hurt 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



205 



nor destroy in all [God's] holy [universe]." All 
men shall have riches and long life and unvarying 
success. God's last experiment will be the restora- 
tion of the Adamic paradise, that the family of 
mankind may be left without excuse. 

The prevailing idea that each individual must 
have his personal share of everything that goes to 
make the aggregate of man's probation is without 
foundation in history, analogy, or the word of God ; 
and all theories of another probation after death are 
mistaken conclusions from these false premises. 
" The survival of the fittest " is not a self-con- 
stituted law of nature discovered by harebrained 
philosophy, but a method of divine administration, 
the justice and equity of which a jealous God will 
make manifest in the revelation of the last day. 

The " Millennium " is, then, that part of the proba- 
tion, so long extended to the world of mankind, 
which, for the last ten centuries of. the world's his- 
tory, takes on once more the conditions and advan- 
tages of paradise, to see "if the goodness of God 
will lead men to repentance," and whether under 
these favorable circumstances they will learn in 
love and gratitude to serve him. It will fail, of 
course, and unregenerate men will gather round 
the liberated king of evil like a unit and like a unit 
be destroyed, but the equity of God shall stand and 
the millions of the destroyed be left without excuse, 
and the revelations of the judgment prove that God 
was both merciful and just, alike in the beginning 
and the end. 



206 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



PICTURE VI. 

(Chapter xii.) 

THIS picture introduces a set of intermediate 
and retrospective views. The subject of the 
first one is the Church of the ages, beginning practi- 
cally with Abraham and the twelve patriarchs (see 
Joseph's dream of the sun, and the moon, and the 
eleven stars). 

Passing with one stride to the manifestation of 
Jesus in this world, who was, in his divinity, the 
Father of the Church, and in his humanity the 
child of the Church, " seed of Abraham/* we wait 
for the introduction of another factor. He comes: 
a great red dragon, red being the patent of 
danger in all his class ; having seven heads, in token 
of his power, misused, but unforfeited as yet ; first 
production, no doubt, of the creative ability vested 
in the Logos, and second creation, therefore, in the 
universe of God ; having ten horns — all power in 
this world ; having his seven heads — once typical of 
the intelligent perfection of his obedient nature ; 
self-crowned with seven symbols of his complete 
unqualified antagonism to God and all good ; and 
having drawn with him in his defection one third 
of the other created intelligences, he places himself 
before the woman to devour the coming child. 

How patiently he tried it — in the murderous 
freaks to which he incited Herod, in the astute 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 207 



temptations in the wilderness, in the instigation of 
what seemed to be the Church itself, to end his life 
in darkness, agony, and shame! But God caught 
him up to heaven. 

" And the woman (the Church) fled into the wil- 
derness where she hath a place prepared of God." 
I need make no argument with my Calvinistic reader 
to prove that the Church is preserved by God's sov- 
ereignty, and to the rest I can only say that the 
first declaration as to his Church establishes that 
fact. "I will put enmity between . . . thy seed and 
her seed; it shall bruise thy head " (Gen. iii, 15); 
and this, one of the last, clearly ratifies it. We are 
persuaded that going " into the wilderness" is not 
here intended to reflect upon the Church — though 
it may be said in an invidious sense that she is 
there — but that the idea intended to be conveyed 
by the wilderness in the Apocalypse is simply space, 
space for withdrawal, for expansion, for exhibition. 
Hence it is here the space or " place " prepared for 
her under any of the above stated conditions. 

The time here described is 1,260 days. This is 
interpreted to mean that number of years ; but how 
is that? If the twelve hours of the day signify the 
twelve months of the year, what do the twelve 
hours of the night signify? Are they to be over- 
looked ? Not at all ; these twenty-four hours 
represent twenty-four months, or two years. We 
have 2,520 years, then, as the period for which the 
woman is to be fed. If you turn to Dan. xii, 11, 
you will find that he says from the taking away of 
the daily sacrifice till " these things" shall be 1,290 
days, or 2,580 years, a difference of sixty years. 



208 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



The taking away of the daily sacrifice was the 
death of Jesus, the rending of the veil. John is 
doubtless stating the period from the time of his 
writing ; if, therefore, he was thirty years old when 
Jesus died, and this chronology is correct, he had 
now attained the extraordinary age of ninety years, 
which, from all accounts, does not seem improbable, 
and it was 2,520 years from that time to the second 
coming of Christ.* 

" There was war in heaven." The date of this 
event is hard to fix. That his defection took place 
before Adam was created is very evident ; that he 
was a tempter from the days of Adam and Eve to 
those of Ananias and Sapphira is clear; but his 
relation to heaven, his prerogative as an accuser, 
and his expulsion from heaven are alike obscure. 
He was evidently an " accuser of the brethren 99 
after they could plead the blood of the Lamb. See 
verses 10 and 11. Jesus said, as of a thing lately 
past, " I beheld Satan as lightning, cast forth from 
heaven;" but he may have spoken in anticipation 
of the future. The most reasonable conjecture is 
that he was excluded from heaven at the same 
time that he was turned loose on earth. f Hence 
the propriety of the declaration, " Having great 
wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short 
time." 

Now, when he renews his attack upon the woman 
there is suggestion of much time past since she 
brought forth the man child, and the " giving of 

* Some better explanation may be given hereafter, as the real dif- 
ference is more likely to be one hundred years, 
f See Picture IV, chapter vii, r, 11. 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



209 



wings 99 may have the signification of had been 
given, for it is followed by a verb present and con- 
tinuous, M where she is nourished." To make it 
plain, when Jesus returned to the earth he raised 
all the pious dead, comprising all the antecedent 
Church, which was thenceforward on wings, and 
from the time the devil was confined to the earth, 
out of his reach ; but, to the last, there remained a 
remnant of those who were being constantly added 
to the Church ; and the mother continued to come 
for her children, and this is the way she took them : 
as soon as they died they were immediately resur- 
rected and joined their brethren in their temporary 
residence in heaven, or at least were with Jesus. 

We resume the narrative at the point of the re- 
newed attack, pausing only to say that the period 
of the woman's stay in the wilderness is, of course, 
" the third period, " and the figures agree therewith : 
"time," 1,000 days; "times," 200 days; "a half 
time," 50 days; 1,250 days, 2,500 years. 

As the woman rose upon her wings (and the fig- 
ure seems to represent her as rising slowly, like a 
heavy bird) the dragon cast forth water as a flood, 
which the earth swallowed to save the woman. 

An ingenious interpretation is offered for this in 
the long-continued Roman persecution. Unfortu- 
nately for this theory the Church is not yet on wings ; 
indeed, in this untoward age some of us would be 
but too glad to see her even on wheels. The truth 
is, the open graves of the sainted dead swallowed 
the vain wrath of the devil toward a resurrected 
Church. 

The period attributed by John to the Church on 
14 



210 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



wings is 2,500 years, whereas the entire period ac- 
cording to Daniel is 2,670, making it probable that 
with the close of the millennium the comparison of 
wings ceases when the saints gather round their 
Lord to engage in the last sharp conflict for the 
possession of this earth. This divides the whole pe- 
riod thus: 1,500 years premillennial, 1,000 years mil- 
lennial, 170 years submillennial ; total, 2,670 years. 

We feel more and more inclined to understand 
his exclusion from heaven to imply the contraction 
of his prerogatives. He is to come no more before 
God as " The Accuser/' " neither was their place 
found any more in heaven," and that, essentially, 
it was coincident with the second coming of Christ, 
for he has never yet claimed the spoils he won from 
his vanquished enemy at his own resurrection. 
This reconciles the dates, but staggers us on ac- 
count of the extended time, as we view it, a period 
of 1,500 consecutive years of ever-increasing activity 
between his expulsion from certain privileged 
grounds to absolute incarceration. And then when 
liberated, 150 years at least in frenzied, desperate 
endeavor to retrieve. But compared with the 6,000 
years of persistent struggle in the past, even that is 
short. It is far beyond the ken of human thought 
to realize how far he must fall from his beginning to 
the end. 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 211 



Abstract Treatise. 

THE HISTORY OF SATAN. 

Believing, as we do, that Satan, or the devil, is 
the author of sin, there are just three things con- 
cerning him in which we are interested — his person- 
ality, his history, and his character. Even in these 
there is much to be drawn from inference, and be- 
yond these all is speculation. One other premise : 
these three things are contemporaneously developed 
in the word of God, and we will deal with them as 
we find them. 

The correctness of the popular idea that it was 
he who tempted our first parents to their fall is 
easily sustained, for shortly after the accomplishment 
of that purpose he (Satan), or the serpent-being, 
within certain limits subordinate to the will of God, 
is cited to appear before him, and coming, quietly, 
receives God's ultimatum, namely, perpetual enmity 
toward him on the part of the woman's seed, and 
the ultimate bruising of his head (which evidently 
is death in some of its forms or symbolisms), to- 
gether with the permissive prediction that he 
(Satan) should bruise the heel of the woman's seed 
(implying, evidently, an injury painful but not mor- 
tal). 

This, then, is a compendium of his history from 
the time he betrayed the human race in their federal 
head to the time when they, in some of their de- 
velopments, shall destroy him with something com- 
parable to death. So much for his history. Now 



2 12 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



as to personality. Who can doubt the personality 
of one party in this convocation more than another ? 
Is God personal who addresses them severally ? 
Then are they not personal who are addressed sev- 
erally? Is the woman, with her seed, personal? 
Then is not the devil, with his seed, personal ? 

Now as to character. That he must have been 
the enemy of God and all good is evident from the 
fact that he sought to undo what God had done in 
a new creation, and to destroy the good in them, 
on which their happiness depended. Furthermore, 
he lied against God, showing his enmity toward him 
and the essential evil of his nature, in that he lied at 
all; and here comes in the testimony of Jesus, who 
says, " He is a liar from the beginning, and the 
father of it " (John viii, 44). 

We pause here, briefly, to consider a question 
asked in speculative philosophy — not in theology — 
namely, " What is the origin of sin?" The Scrip- 
tures tell us that " he was a murderer from the be- 
ginning" (John viii, 44), that " he is a liar, and the 
father [author] of it [lying] "(John viii, 44), that 
"the devil sinneth from the beginning" (1 John 
lit, 8). 

If, then, he was the first murderer, the first liar, the 
first sinner, is it less than folly in the believer to 
ask, What was the origin of sin ? Desiring only to 
touch the salient points let us come to the tempta- 
tion in the wilderness and see how much of history, 
personality, and character we can find therein. Of 
history we learn that he is still alive and active, 
the privileged opposer of good, that with or with- 
out accurate knowledge in the premises, he under- 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 213 



takes to seduce the second Adam as he did the first, 
is defeated, and retires in good order. In person- 
ality he uses the first personal pronoun, " All these 
things will I give thee ; " this, in its too frequent use 
at least, is considered the superlative evidence of 
intense individuality, and is everywhere indicative 
of conscious personality. He does one thing that 
no inflamed fulmination of thought backed by an- 
swering desire can do, " setteth him on a pinnacle 
of the temple." He does another thing that no ag- 
gregation and consummation of long-continued evil 
can effect, " Taketh him up into an exceeding high 
mountain, and showeth him all the kingdoms of the 
world, and the glory of them." Men who doubt the 
personality of the devil have either ceased to read 
the word of God or forfeited the appreciation of 
speech. In character he was never so moderate, for 
which reason, no doubt, he succeeds so well when he 
tries the same experiment on the followers of 
Christ. He was, as always, limited by the divine 
power to which he is subject in the relations of 
gager, castigator, and executioner; in fact, he was 
limited by the circumstances of the case. Ninety- 
nine one hundredths of his power over men grew out 
of the depravity he had already effected ; but here 
was no depravity to build on or appeal to ; he was 
therefore shut up to these three trials to which 
Christian faith is subject : temptations to distrust, 
presumption, and nonfealty ; " Thou shalt worship 
the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." 
He is represented in Holy Writ as able to transform 
himself into an angel of light ; and here his overt 
crime is hypocrisy, for a careful reading shows that 



214 THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 

he assumed the role of friend and offered counsel 
and aid, the obviously evil purpose being to thwart 
the divine plan for man's recovery ; and in this view 
of the case it is curious to speculate on what he 
knew and what he did not. In this, his second gen- 
eral endeavor, he lied as before, but seems to have 
improved in the art, as the world has done under his 
tuition, and did what polite society expects all men 
to do, he lied ingeniously. For his history, person- 
ality, and character, from " the [trial] in the wilder- 
ness 99 to the end of the era, we would refer the reader 
to a single Scripture, "Your adversary, the devil, as 
a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he 
may devour." Unhappily for the world, he does 
not go about roaring, but still combines the feroc- 
ity of the lion with the subtlety of the serpent. 
In discussing his qualities, as manifested in the 
apocalyptic period, we assume facts for which 
the world is little prepared as yet, but all of 
which must be in due time established. In the 
twelfth chapter of Revelation in point of time 
he is first introduced as a dragon seeking to devour 
the man-child of the Church, with a reference to 
his having drawn a third part of the stars of heaven 
(angels) after him (then or previously), and four 
names, Devil, Satan, dragon, and serpent are there 
made synonymous ; there are touches also of his 
future history. In the picture presented to us in 
the ninth chapter, appertaining to an advanced pe- 
riod of the succeeding age, we find in the eleventh 
verse a character called " the angel of the bottom- 
less pit," and named, according to the languages, 
" Abaddon," or " Apollyon." It cannot be deter- 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



215 



mined absolutely that this is Satan, but the inferen- 
tial argument is very strong. It is not, however, a 
matter of importance, in the discussion of our pres- 
ent subject, to determine this question, albeit this 
date is one of great importance in the history of 
Satan ; but of that more anon. 

We now turn to the three remaining points in his 
consecutive history. First (xii, 17), in the last era 
of the Church, in the latter part of it, " the dragon 
having great wrath because he knoweth that he 
hath but a short time," " went to make war with 
the remnant of her seed," in beautiful consonance 
with God's declaration, "I will put enmity between 
thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her 
seed 99 (Gen. iii, 15). This is a simple statement of 
the fact. 

In the thirteenth chapter we have the particulars 
with this key in the fourth verse, "And they wor- 
shiped the dragon which gave power unto the 
beast." What further we read of strife and perse- 
cution and blasphemy comes from this source and 
continues till the truce. The next thing then is his 
being bound (xx, 1-3) ; he is chained, cast into the 
bottomless pit, the door shut, battened down and 
sealed like the hatchway of a ship, and there is 
therefore no history of Satan, outside of his private 
diary, for a thousand years ; but you observe the 
declaration is that " after that he must be loosed a 
little season." And so w r e find beween the seventh 
and tenth verses the last act in this long drama of 
deception and cruelty and woe, " he is loosed out 
of his prison," and he goes out to deceive the na- 
tions, and gather them together as the sand of the 



2l6 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



sea, over the breadth of the earth ; compassing the 
camp of the saints ; to fight the world's last battle 
(a curious contrast with the popular idea that the 
world will end in universal righteousness), and he, 
the Napoleon of this Waterloo, " is cast into the 
lake of fire and brimstone, " and shall be tormented 
day and night forever and ever " (Rev. xx). And 
so we have sketched the history, with the distinc- 
tive personality and persistent cruelty of " that 
wicked one," " the prince of the powers of the air," 
save that we did not begin with his beginning 
nor account for his origin. So now, reader, 
if your patience is equal to the task, we will go 
back in search of his nativity. We trust we have 
no reader who regards Satan as the uncreated, self- 
existent, independent rival of God. Such a 
thought is worthy only the twilight of heathen 
philosophy. 

Divine, like philosophical, truths are so linked 
together that the knowledge of several dependent 
facts comes with the appreciation of some funda- 
mental proposition. So until we understand the 
fact, so distinctively revealed that " the glory which 
[Christ] had with the [Father] before the world 
was," was the result of the first creative act, we are 
but little prepared to appreciate what follows, 
namely, that the second person thus differentiated 
proceeded to create complete intelligences of the 
highest order, described by Paul (Col. i, 16) in the 
descending scale as " thrones," " dominions/' " prin- 
cipalities," " powers." Who so likely to have been 
a king as he ? Confronted with Michael, the great 
archangel meekly interposes the authority of God. 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



217 



Between him and Gabriel we find no ground on 
which to build a comparison. Indeed, we find 
nothing to prevent or discourage the conclusion 
that he was the first, and therefore the greatest, 
complete creation, elected by the creative preroga- 
tive of the Son to companionship with himself. 

What incalculable ages had passed, with what 
countless millions heaven had been peopled before 
he fell, who can tell ? But that he did fall is most 
clearly revealed; first, in that there were " angels 
who kept not their first estate " (Jude vi) ; secondly, 
in that Satan was seen to fall " as lightning from 
heaven ; " and thirdly, in the apocalyptic picture 
(Rev. xii, 4), the dragon's tail is represented as 
drawing " the third part of the stars of heaven 
[angels] after him to the earth." The nature of 
these pictures admits of this fall having been two or 
ten thousand years before the event with which it 
is associated (Rev. xii, 4) ; but the perspecuity of 
language proves that it was before the birth of the 
man-child, and this we say lest the reader should 
confound his original fall with his final exclusion 
from heaven. We might add to these the passage 
from Matt, xx, 41, without date, except by implica- 
tion, " Everlasting fire prepared for the devil and 
his angels." 

We have then absolutely established his fall ; it 
had occurred before his personal history begins. 
This, with the premise of his probable origin, con- 
stitutes as complete a biography as we have of 
Marshal Ney, and a much better one than we have 
of Homer. And yet the history and personality 
and character of Homer might pass by the one 



218 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



point of interest to us — he was the author of the 
Grecian epics. The humble birth, filial fidelity, sol- 
dierly tastes, and tragic death of Ney might all be 
written, and leave out the central fact that he was 
Marshal of the empire. We must therefore return 
to the point of central interest in Satan's history ; 
he was the " accuser of our brethren." 

We think he was intercepted in this work in the 
earliest record (Gen. iii, beginning with the eighth 
verse), and the accuser became the accused and the 
convicted. But he is personally introduced to the 
world in that capacity by the author of the Book 
of Job, i, 6. 

We observe four points. It was a levee held 
with the fallen and unfallen archangels (sons of 
God); that Satan was a prisoner at large (Jude vi), 
" reserved in everlasting chains " " unto the judgment 
of the great day ; " that he had access to heaven ; 
and (verse f) that he spent his time chiefly on the 
earth. And we draw three inferences, that he was 
tolerated in a relation between gager and spy, with 
knowledge that he was adverse both to the govern- 
ment and the subjects ; that he was not free of 
heaven, but under constraint ; that he had premedi- 
tated the challenging of God as to Job, and that he 
stands, therefore, as " the accuser of our brethren." 

God was manifestly on the other side, for he an- 
ticipated Satan, and challenged him as to the integ- 
rity of Job, and permits the severest test, only to 
establish, equitably and evidently, the justice of his 
conclusion. 

Before leaving this exceeding clear presentation 
of his character we would link it with some of the 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



teachings of the New Testament, and this we do 
under the three following propositions : First, Satan 
is allowed to retain the " power of death " (Heb. ii, 
14); second, "the power of the air" (Eph. ii, 2); 
third, " the kingdoms of this world" (2 Cor. iv, 4 ; 
Rev. ii, 15) ; all under limitations. 

The reason why he retains the first is that Christ 
did not redeem mankind from natural death, but 
only offset it with the resurrection ; it is still the 
abiding result of sin and in the domain of Satan. 
The reason he retains the second is that Christ did 
not abrogate the curse either in the earth or its 
surrounding atmosphere ; the one still produces the 
thorn, the desert, and the grave; the other the mil- 
dew, the cyclone, and the ague. The reason why 
he retains the third is that Christ cannot resume 
the kingdoms of this world but by conversion or 
subjugation. The one he cannot coerce, the other 
he still kindly forbears. 

In the application of these powers to Job's case 
we take them in their inverted order. To the king- 
doms of this world appertain the glory of them in 
their wealth and resource. That, therefore, which 
Satan offered to Jesus he took away from Job. God 
can give or remove wealth for the accomplishment 
of his purposes; Satan can do the same thing if not 
prevented by the sovereignty of God ; he took it 
away from Job to madden him ; he offered it to 
Jesus to corrupt him. 

As the " prince of this world " and " of the pow- 
ers of the air " he prompted the revelry of the sons 
within, and brought the sirocco upon them from 
without. It is more than possible they were sinning 



220 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



themselves more perfectly into his power, not- 
withstanding their father's prayers. Having " the 
power of death " and all the appliances thereof, he 
could bring the greedy Sabeans to take the cattle, 
or the fire of Satan — the servant was mistaken — to 
scathe the sheep, or the simoom from the desert to 
twist the four corners of the house of Uz and 
bury the seven brothers and the three sisters in a 
monumental grave. And subsequently, because the 
power of death and disease were his, God laid the 
interdict upon him, " but save his life." 

We now come to a point in the accuser's history 
which we derive from Jude, a free version of which 
seems to be this: Moses had died, absolutely, or to 
the extent of a trance in which his soul had been 
abstracted from his corporal nature, and Michael 
was sent for the body, it not being possible for him 
then to be brought under the rule of the resurrec- 
tion. When the angel essayed to take the body to 
heaven Satan appeared and disputed possession 
under the rule that all dead bodies were his, which 
was tenable and well established by custom. The 
case was exceptional, and the law to which the jeal- 
ous and aggressive tyrant clung so tenaciously was 
only broken when a body that had never sinned, but 
only assumed the sins of others, rose by its own 
inherent sinlessness. Small as the incident may 
seem, there is nothing more strongly illustrative of 
the character of the " accuser." 

We have permitted this essay to draw itself out 
by naturally consecutive links to a great length, 
and now must close as rapidly as possible. Let no 
man delude himself with the idea that the relation 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



22 I 



of the accuser has changed. The blood of the 
Lamb is still the straitened soul's availing plea ; its 
beneficiaries have not loved their lives unto the 
death in defending it ; and the last two witnesses 
of its efficiency he will kill while proclaiming it. 

"The resurrection of the just (justified) " at the 
close of this era, under the Lamb's right of purchase 
and possession, will but inflame his hate, and the 
question naturally arises, When will the work of the 
accuser cease ? An endeavor to answer this ques- 
tion at its appropriate point in the history led to 
the production of this essay. We answer briefly, 
and close. 

Satan has not been probated, but tolerated, for 
reasons known to God but not yet revealed to us. 
We do not permit ourselves, however, to suppose 
that it was from any necessity that limited the 
power or reflected upon the sovereignty of God, but 
only that principles of eternal equity required it 
or infinite wisdom deemed it best. But the answer : 
when Satan shall be permitted by God to enter 
more directly upon his punitive offices toward men 
(Rev. ix, 2), then will the office of " accuser " (solic- 
itor) cease, and Michael, the champion of the skies, 
will exclude him and his angels from heaven (Rev. 
xii, 9), and thenceforward he will only be permitted 
till the swiftly approaching millennium to roam 
among men, " a tiger mangling in his lair." The 
reader of the Apocalypse knows the rest. 



222 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



PICTURE VII. 

(Chapter xiii.) 

THIS chapter is admitted, tacitly, practically, 
and universally, to be the center of apocalyp- 
tic mystery ; and we would premise that the popu- 
lar theory — namely, that the first beast is pagan 
Rome, the second Christian (Catholic) Rome, hav- 
ing two horns, Church and State, claiming to work 
" miracles " and deceiving " them that dwell on the 
earth ; " commanding, making, and giving life to 
the image of the first beast, that is, presenting to 
the world a galvanized heathenism for Christianity 
— is so apt, so reasonable, and so well sustained 
that, without a knowledge of the apocalyptic period, 
we hardly see how men could think otherwise. 
That there is much of truth in this theory we may 
take occasion to point out hereafter, but to its un- 
qualified acceptance we must now oppose the fol- 
lowing objections : The first beast continued to 
exercise his power and authority steadily and in- 
creasingly until the day of Armageddon (see chap, 
xix, 19, 20) ; that the active alliance of the first and 
second beasts continued till they were subdued at 
the same time (see same) ; that the seat of the first 
beast is beyond all comparison with Rome, and 
continues to the millennium (see xvi, 19) ; and lastly, 
that the period of his activity is definitely fixed at 
1,260 years, as Rev. xiii, 5 is generally understood, 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 223 



or, as we read it, at 2,520, which, respectively, 
would not suit the persecuting periods of ancient 
or modern Rome, severally or totally. 
What shall we say, then ? 

History repeats itself ; prophecy has, commonly, 
its partial and its complete fulfillment ; both propo- 
sitions apply ; there has been a partial fulfillment 
of this pictured prediction in this period of the 
resurrection ; there will be an ultimate and complete 
one in that period of the advent. 

And while we are on this subject of chronology 
let us finish it. The reign of the beast is 150 years 
less than the complete apocalyptic period ; in other 
words, he comes into power some 150 years after 
the second advent, and closes his career of sov- 
ereignty over men just (with 1.000 years of interreg- 
num) before the end of all temporal things. 

So now we enter upon the analysis of this most 
mysterious and wonderful picture, which can only 
be perfectly understood as it reveals itself in the 
unfoldings of the ages to come, and at the very 
outset we are obliged to acknowledge ignorance. 
The beast rises out of the sea. Does that indicate 
an island origin? Who can tell? A thousand 
years hence some man may say, " Surely this grow- 
ing power is the beast of which we read in the 
Apocalypse, for it is like him, and, moreover, it rose 
up out of the sea. 

Truly he was an ugly beast, lithe as a leopard, 
strong as a bear, devouring as a lion. We would 
all like to know the history of his wound, but it is 
not revealed ; albeit, as he seems to rise into power 
before the first plague was sent upon the wicked, 



224 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



that may have been his blood which sprinkled the 
earth when the trumpet of the first angel sounded. 

I once heard an intelligent man say that the rea- 
son why God did not reveal the existence of the 
devil to his ancient people was because they would 
straight way have gone to worshiping him. This seems 
very reasonable. Modern philosophical infidelity 
will not worship the devil on his own merits. If 
there were no God they would fight the devil, but 
they are willing to overlook the enmity of the devil 
against themselves if they can but find in him a 
powerful ally with whom to make common cause 
against God. Therefore when the might of the 
beast is manifested they will say, " Ah, ha! here'is 
your power. Now where is your Providence ? 
where is your Captain of hosts? where is your 
King of kings ? " 

And the dragon gave him "a mouth speaking 
great things, and blasphemies," and God gave him 
permission " to continue 2,520 years." The devil 
incited him to oppose God, " to blaspheme his 
name," and God gave him permission " to make 
war with the saints, and to overcome them," and to 
exercise his power over all " kindreds, and tongues, 
and nations." We return a moment to -consider 
that in his blasphemy he attacks the " tabernacle' ' — 
not heretofore heard of — the symbol of God's pres- 
ence with men and them that dwell in heaven ; the 
ocular demonstration now being given that the 
resurrected were dwelling with God. This locates 
him and gives us the contracting and descending 
scale of his imprecation ; he could curse God any 
time, he could only curse the " tabernacle " when that 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



22 5 



tabernacle appeared ; he could only curse " them 
that dwell in heaven " when they were made vis- 
ible to him." 

Now we would call the reader's attention to the 
manner in which John glides out of history into 
personal, prophetic declaration: "And all that 
dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose 
names are not written in the book of life of the 
Lamb slain from the foundation of the world," is 
not continuous history, for that has been in past 
tense, having already passed before his eyes in the 
picture. This is history, of course, but it is declar- 
ative history, iterated, doubtless, by the angel at- 
tendant, and reiterated by John. " If any man has 
an ear, let him hear," is a lamp borrowed by John 
from the hand of Jesus, and is intended, no doubt, 
to shed light on the two passages between which it 
is hung; for the following verse is John's reflection 
and comment on what he has seen and described 
for the benefit of the reader; here it is: " He that 
leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he 
that killeth with the sword must be killed with the 
sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the 
saints." His Master had orally taught him this 
before (Matt, xxvi, 52). 

But we cannot yet dismiss it from consideration, 

for this, in turn, sheds light on the history of the 

beast ; his power must have been temporal power ; 

his symbol " the sword," " his seat " the center of 

organized government, and his " great authority 99 

that of armies at command. Permit me, then, in 

Hebrew fashion, to run my subject to a conclusion. 

In Rev. xix, 19-22, we have the end of the beast 
15 



226 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



and his armies ; so this is his history in brief : A 
temporal power, rising soon after the coming of 
Christ ; severely checked within 200 years after its 
rise ; nevertheless growing in power and extent un- 
der five other plagues visited upon it ; outliving, in 
whatever suspended form, the millennium, and per- 
ishing in the last plague shortly after the millennium, 
2,520 years after its incipiency. 

There comes before us now, as before the eye of 
the apostle, in the dissolving views another beast — 
beast meaning living creature, whether good or bad, 
which living creature is again the personification of 
some great abstraction — a creature Christlike in his 
appearance, but grossly dragonlike in his oral au- 
thority. No doubt the symbolism of his two horns, 
as we have heretofore received it, is correct — dou- 
ble power, twofold agency ; both springing from 
the same root ; one operating on fear, the other 
on superstition ; Church and State combined. 

This beast is represented as " coming up out of 
the earth," whereas the first " rose up out of the 
sea." The contrast may mean this — preserving for 
convenience the personification — the first, more 
powerful and longer continued, came up out of 
abysmal hell ; while the second, serving a tempo- 
rary purpose, was begotten of Satan from the 
superstitions of men, and in that respect w r as of 
earthly origin. This other beast, then, who " exer- 
ciseth all the power of the first beast before him," 
and continues for a short time contemporary with 
him, is the natural product, the outgrowing corol- 
lary, and in the separability of his agencies the ally 
of the first. While practically the beast has been al- 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 22/ 



ready worshiped — as indeed the dragon before him 
— this is undoubtedly the religious element, for a 
time converting blasphemous opposition into blas- 
phemous imitation ; and as you study the agency of 
this auxiliary you can but say to yourself surely 
" the holy inquisition 99 met all the demands of this 
lamb-looking monster with a devil's heart. It did 
not, however, but doubtless in days to come another 
unhallowed inquisition, called holy, will do so. The 
particular mission, under the devil, of this secondary 
power is now made apparent. All is now to be em- 
bodied in the " image of the beast.'' This leads us 
naturally to 2 Thessalonians, second chapter, where 
he is called the " man of sin," and " that wicked 
or " lawless one," " even him, w T hose coming is after 
the working of Satan with all power and signs and 
lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of un- 
righteousness in them that perish ; because they re- 
ceived not the love of the truth that they might be 
saved. And for this cause God shall send them 
strong delusion, that they should believe a lie," 
u And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the 
Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and 
shall destroy with the brightness of his coming." 

We are not specially fond of dates and figures in 
this connection, but it is proper, perhaps, to say 
that the period of this reign is not so long but that 
one man can occupy the whole. We review, there- 
fore, the tabulated statement already given. Whole 
advent period, 2,670 years ; submillennial propor- 
tion, 150 years; millennial proportion, 1,000 years; 
leaving antemillennial proportion 1,520 years. At 
the close of the 1,520 years,after the battle of Arma- 



228 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



geddon, and just before the millennium, the second 
"beast" and the ''false prophet" are cast into the 
lake of fire. See xix, 20. 

Now the first beast begins his career about the 
year 150 A. P., but the second beast comes into 
power, or rather puts the man of sin into power, 
666 days, or 1,332 years, later; in other words, in 
1482 A. P., which gives him 38 years to reign be- 
fore he is overcome and cast into the lake of fire. 
The value of this "number of a man" it is impos- 
sible for us now to appreciate. As the time draws 
nigh, and men are first in the period of the Apoca- 
lypse, and then in the era of the beast, those who 
believe the word of God will say, " Beware of 666," 
but the unthinking mass will, then as now, run after 
the most popular idol and the latest craze. 

The nature of the mark is difficult to determine. 
That it is to be for the boycotting of Christians is 
clear enough. That it might be figurative we ad- 
mit, and mark the actions in the hand and the 
thoughts or character in the forehead ; but for our 
life we cannot escape the idea that it is the literal 
badge and shibboleth of the devil's party of that 
day, claiming to constitute the exclusive Church of 
God, as they too often do now. According to the 
new version "the mark" is identical w r ith the name 
of the beast and the number of the beast, "the 
number of a [the] man" is, most likely, a rallying 
cry or secret password. We can say no more, and 
think we shall have been in the grave a thousand 
years before we have anything more to say. So 
the curtain falls and closes another scene in this 
most wonderful drama. 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



229 



Abstract Treatise. 

THE RESURRECTION. 

The resurrection was born in the purposes of 
God at least four thousand years before it was 
introduced into the world by Jesus Christ, to whom 
it originally and inalienably belongs. The writer 
would, if possible, be precise as to the date of its 
origin, and if the reader can tell when it was that 
God said, " Let us make man in our image," then 
we are happy to assure him : That was just the 
time ! 

While we cannot further than this tell you exactly 
when, we take great pleasure in telling you the 
manner of its origin. When in the divine council 
it was determined to create man it was known to 
the omniscient mind that man would fall. Knowl- 
edge is founded upon facts ; facts do not grow out 
of knowledge. Facts proceed from some sufficient 
cause or causes, but knowledge is not a cause. Man 
may anticipate facts not having yet transpired from 
a knowledge of causes leading thereto, but God 
knows the end from the beginning by his prescience ; 
nevertheless knowledge, whether human or divine, 
is not the procuring cause of any fact, but the fact 
is the preexisting foundation of the knowledge. 
If, therefore, there be successive presentations of 
thought to the divine mind, and we think there 
are, this would be the order of their presentation : 
We will make man in our image ; he will fall ; we 
will redeem him (" God was in Christ redeeming "), 



230 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



and out of the redemptory scheme the resurrection 
was born. 

Jesus purchased the estate ; the tenantry became 
amenable to him. So much of the penalty as in- 
volved the dissolution of soul and body was not to 
be canceled, therefore it became necessary and sim- 
ply a practical question that they should be restored 
to life instead of remaining in life, now an impossi- 
bility. Satan's vested rights, no doubt, complicated 
the matter ; everything resulting from sin fell to 
him, therefore the body, dying under the penalty 
of sin, was claimed by him, for which reason he 
contended for the body of Moses, the Scriptures 
plainly declaring that this " power of death," or 
power of the grave, was conceded to him. Compare 
Hosea xiii, 14, and I Cor. xv, 55, with Heb. ii, 14. 
This constituted that " fear of death through which 
God's ancient people were all their lifetime subject 
to bondage" (Heb. ii. 15). 

The whole plan of redemption may, then, be thus 
briefly stated. The entire race, with all that apper- 
tained to them, having been purchased by Christ, 
" all judgment [was] committed to the Son," and so 
much of the penalty as involved the resolution of 
the body into its original elements was permitted 
to take effect, " for dust thou art, and unto dust 
shalt thou return.-' To offset this Christ ordained 
the resurrection. He therefore truly said, " I am 
the resurrection." Satan sought to prevent the 
consummation of this plan in the " wilderness," in 
" Gethsemane," on " Calvary," albeit inferior devils 
recognized the inevitable when they said, " We ad- 
jure you, by God, that you torment us not before 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



231 



the time." Jesus rose from the grave by inherent 
right, not having sinned, although a man, his body 
having only been made subject to death on account 
of sin. In this he added the right of conquest to 
that of purchase, and, by reason of this double right, 
will raise the bodies of all men, good and bad, for 
in that he died for all " he is the propitiation for, the 
purchaser of, the whole world/' 

If, then, in these premises we have made clear the 
procuring cause of the resurrection, we have at the 
same time established two facts, namely, that the 
resurrection must be universal, otherwise it could 
not meet the end in view ; and that Christ must 
have been "the firstfruits of the resurrection, " or 
he could not have secured that end. There could 
have been, therefore, absolutely no resurrection 
prior to that of Jesus. He must have been actually 
dead, and his resurrection must have been a type of 
the resurrection of all men. 

This introduces us into the dispensation of the 
resurrection, Paul said at the outset, " Of the hope 
and resurrection of the dead I am called in ques- 
tion," and of the close, " If by any means I might 
attain unto the resurrection [from among] the dead." 
We pause here to say a word as to the possibilities 
of any resurrection before that of Christ. Resur- 
rection is an official act and irrevocable : " Neither 
can they die any more : for they are equal unto 
the angels ; and are the children of God, being the 
children of the resurrection " (Luke xx. 30). It has 
never taken place in any body save that of Jesus 
Christ, and possibly imparted to his body that im- 
mortality which is the inalienable result. A recall 



232 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



from the grave is an incident of no theological im- 
portance, and has often taken place, as in the child 
of the Shunammite woman, the widow's son of 
Nain, Lazarus, Eutychus, and others. These were 
granted an extension of natural life, and their cases 
differ in no essential particular from that of Heze- 
kiah. These, however, returned freshly from the 
grave, no decomposition having set in, except, per- 
haps, in the case of Lazarus, and that not demon- 
strable. 

There is little that is strange to the Christian 
philosopher in this return to life accomplished by 
the faith of the living. For if faith be the essential 
power of the soul — and who that thinks a moment 
can doubt it ? — then it is not strange that a soul in 
one department should call upon another soul in a 
several and slightly differing department, to return 
and reanimate the body which belongs to it, if God 
so wills. When we have crossed the line and look 
back from that point of view the only strange 
thing in it will be that we ever thought it strange. 
At best we have the clearest conviction that no such 
thing will be seen again to the end of time, it not 
being consistent with the will and wisdom of God 
that it should be so. But we have at least one 
example in the word of God where there was no 
such agency to operate (2 Kings xiii, 21), when the 
man (freshly dead) touched the bones of Elisha he 
stood up. There is but one explanation (aside 
from such superstition as rests on bones, relics, etc.) ; 
that is, God paid this voluntary compliment to Elisha 
for the benefit of living men. 

But there is another class coming up out of com- 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 233 



plete decomposition, such as Samuel, albeit we 
consider his a doubtful case, for while it was as- 
suredly Samuel, having his knowledge and retain- 
ing his identity and speaking of himself as being 
" brought up" (an accommodation of his language 
to the circumstances of the case), nevertheless there 
is no evidence that he brought anything with him 
of a material character any more than did Moses or 
Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration. This is 
biit another act of God 's sovereignty, and for the pur- 
pose of vindicating himself once more before Saul 
and his contemporaries. 

But the clearest and best example of this rising 
from the dead, after some interval, is found in 
Matt, xxvii, 52, 53 : " And the graves were opened ; 
and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, 
and came out of the graves after his resurrection, . . . 
and appeared unto many." We do not appreciate 
these incidental teachings of Scripture. If our curi- 
osity were hungry for the tilings "within the veil" 
this casual drawing of the curtain would find us 
watchful for a peep within. Bear with us if we 
speak at some length of this brief revelation. 

This resurrection differs from all others in at least 
three essential particulars : First, this was not pro- 
longed or respited life ; they did not return to iden- 
tify themselves with this life again ; secondly, the 
reconstruction of their bodies (some time dead) in- 
volved all the difficulties which suggest themselves 
to modern Sadducees and materialists of all ages ; 
thirdly (though first in importance), it was comple- 
mentary to Christ in his resurrection, upon which it 
was made to depend. Their graves opened when 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



he died, and when he rose they came forth. Their 
rising was in defiance of Satan, betokening an ap- 
preciation of Christ's victory; in short, a triumph 
in honor of the occasion. 

Yet this is not resurrection, neither to " life eter- 
nal/' neither was it " the resurrection of damnation ; " 
they did not remain in that condition ; they did not 
receive on their bodies the seal of immortality because 
they were the children of the resurrection ; they did 
not become any more like the glorified Christ; indeed, 
it is not improbable that they rose, in part, to meet 
Jesus while he was in a condition corresponding with 
their own. For his resurrection was more slowly di- 
vided into its several parts and processes than ours 
will be; partly, perhaps, to be more clearly illustra- 
tive, partly to subserve certain special purposes. One 
thing is certain, in a condition differing from that 
he held in the tomb, widely differing from his pres- 
ent " glorious body," was he " seen of [the disciples] 
forty days." The simple lifting of the arm is natu- 
rally divided into three parts. There is the prepa- 
ration to lift in nerve and muscle : the condition of 
lifting and the condition of being lifted. So in the 
resurrection, while it is simple in its completeness 
it is threefold in its progressiveness, having these 
distinct parts, that of return to natural condition, 
of dematerialization, and of spiritualization. All of 
which seem to show no line of demarkation when 
done " in the twinkling of an eye," but are plainly 
manifested as successive stages in the resurrection 
of our Lord ; for Jesus evidently stopped this proc- 
ess at its first stage (in which there was little to do 
in his case), and in this condition entertained the 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 235 



delegation from the open grave. This explains why 
he said to Mary, " Touch me not ; for I am not yet 
ascended to my Father : but go to my brethren, 
and say unto them, I ascend to my Father, and your 
Father; and to my God, and your God." The de- 
voted woman had followed him so closely as to 
anticipate his heavenly toilet. We know not how 
and when he passed from stage to stage, nor posi- 
tively when he first ascended to his Father, but we 
know that it was in his own material personality 
that he invited the examination of Thomas, and 
that it had been in his unaffected individuality that 
he passed through the closed doors, and that, visi- 
ble but imponderable, he rose before the eyes of 
the disciples to resume " the glory that he had with 
the Father before the world was," there to remain 
till in the fullness of time " He shall so come again 
as [they saw him go]," and " receive us unto him- 
self, that where he is there we may be also." 

At this point we are introduced into the dispen- 
sation of tlie resurrection ; that is, expectancy or 
faith, extending from the resurrection of the " first 
fruits" to the time of the " resurrection from 
among the dead," when " them also which sleep in Je- 
sus will God bring with him," and during which we 
" wait for his Son from heaven." The relation of this 
period to Satan, or, properly, rather of Satan to this pe- 
riod, is possibly beyond our view. We ask ourselves, 
does not Satan know now that he has lost his grip 
on the grave? And if so, -why does he not cease 
the fight ? We possibly endow him with knowledge 
too nearly omniscient. Why did he not understand 
that he could not take the body of Moses? Why 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



did not his failure " to devour the man-child " dis- 
courage him ? Do we appreciate the fact that there 
was such a surrender of Christ to him in " the power 
of darkness " as greatly to encourage him and make 
him feel, perhaps, that he had won at last? If 
this puzzles us, what about his future, when, being 
expelled finally from heaven, he "shall have great 
wrath, knowing that his time is short?" What 
about the illusion he seems to share with the crowd, 
when the two witnesses seemed to be slain, that 
they were really dead, though resurrected men ? 
What about the last great conflict, the diabolical 
coup de main, when he would with a cosmopolitan 
army completely overwhelm and destroy the last 
stronghold of the saints? It does not have the ap- 
pearance of desperation, of selling out dearly, but 
of the most confident presumption. 

We are launched fairly into the existing period, 
but it will not take long to cross it, extended though 
it be; Daniel says twenty-five hundred and eighty 
years " from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be 
taken away" (Dan. xii, u). This is preeminently 
the dispensation of the Holy Ghost. (We hope 
modern theologians will excuse our use of old-fash- 
ioned terms.) Before there was any resurrection of a 
typical Saviour there was no salvation by faith ; be- 
fore faith became the groundwork of salvation 
there was no heartfelt office of the Holy Ghost. 
Our faith is built on the resurrection of Christ, " who 
was raised again for our justification ; " " if Christ be 
not raised [our] faith is vain." The regeneration, 
which is the work of the Spirit, is the characteristic 
of the period in which we live, whereby we are 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED, 



237 



made " new creatures in Christ Jesus," " Christ in 
our hearts the hope of glory." The words of our 
Saviour to Nicodemus expressed the conditions of 
the new kingdom or were void of meaning, " Verily, 
verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born [again 
of water and the Spirit], he cannot see the kingdom 
of God." But as this is our dispensation, with which 
we are familiar, we pass on to that event which 
closes this and introduces another, " the resurrec- 
tion of the just." 

That this is to be a partial resurrection, confined 
to those only "who are his [Christ's]," is as clear as 
any declaration, human or divine, could make it. 
Read and analyze 1 Thess. iv, 13—18. The thing of 
which the apostle speaks as pending, and perhaps 
imminent is " the coming of the Lord." The cases 
spoken of in particular are the dead from among their 
own number, " them which are asleep in Jesus;" 
of whom it is affirmed, "The dead in Christ shall 
rise first," and then of such of their own number as 
might be still living at that time ; " Then we which 
are alive and remain shall be caught up together 
with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the 
air ; " and then of both united, " and so shall we ever 
be with the Lord." Can there be any general resur- 
rection in all this? Can there be one wicked man 
of whom any of these things could be predicted ; 
that he is of the " brethren ; " that being dead, he is 
" asleep in Jesus ; " or being alive, that he " shall be 
caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the 
air; M or above all, " so shall (he) ever be with the 
Lord ? " Pages might be written on this subject, 
but one clear Scripture is enough to establish any- 



238 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



thing ; so we enter on the resurrection period. On 
the opening fact, that when the Lord comes again 
he will resurrect the bodies of all the righteous dead 
who have died from Adam's time to that time 
(" those that are his "), we will not dwell. To 
them will be added by being changed (translated) 
the comparative small number of the righteous liv- 
ing on the earth at that time, for only a small num- 
ber can be found at any time. 

And now, having made so great a stride in the 
history, we had better go back and, in some degree, 
look into the philosophy of the resurrection. The 
nature of any crop may be determined by its first 
fruits. Jesus was (we say it reverently) a sample of 
the resurrection. We can appreciate, as far as the 
cultivation of our perceptions has gone, the under- 
lying spiritual body of Jesus Christ and the fact 
that, of his own volition, he passed from a material 
into an immaterial condition (we use these terms 
relatively, knowing they are rather popular than 
accurate) ; now when this body is changed it cannot 
be the same, for that would preclude a change. If 
a body too light to sink is suddenly filled with shot 
and goes to the bottom, the least that can be said is, 
it is the same body plus the shot ; if a body too 
heavy to rise is suddenly relieved of one hundred 
pounds moisture and ascends into the air, the least 
that can be said is, it is the same body minus the 
water. If the body of Jesus, having been a bona 
fide body, subject to all natural laws, is instantly 
changed so that it is no longer ponderable, tangible, 
or visible, you may say it is the same body contra 
all natural laws, but surely it is more accurate to 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



239 



say this is another body under other conditions 
and subject to other laws. Then, of course, the 
question of identity arises, which brings us in turn 
to another inference. Those who appreciate the 
incarnation of Jesus Christ at all realize that to his 
complete humanity appertained a human will upon 
which, in obedience to physiological laws, the mo- 
tion of every muscle was made to depend. Now, 
the exercise of this will is the same in all cases ; he 
makes himself invisible, and so " passing through 
the midst he goes his way," there is no change in 
his volition. Again, his divine will operates through 
his human will ; the glory of his celestial nature 
shines through his terrestrial body ; he is transfigured 
before the eyes of three of his disciples ; no question 
is raised as to his identity ; one will dominates all 
the changes. Once more he leads his disciples out 
as far as Olivet ; he talks with them, they handle 
him, he is identified with them. Behold ! his body 
is imponderable, even as he extends his hands over 
them in benediction ; he slowly rises into the air till 
the cloud curtain of his heavenly withdrawing room 
hides him from their sight, and even then a servant 
comes forth to say that in like manner as they had 
seen him go he would return. Did not the uniform 
exercise of his will, dominating these diverse actions, 
demonstrate his continuous identity so clearly that 
no doubt ever entered into any mind? " He was, 
and is, and is to be," "the same yesterday, to-day, 
and forever." 

A simple statement of the underlying theology is 
this: Christ first modeled our natural body after his 
own spiritual body, constructively and capacita- 



240 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



tively like it, but on a lower plane ; he then, for 
redemptory purposes of identification, descended to 
our level ; and when, therefore, in the resurrection he 
returned to his own higher level he left the way 
open, through the inhering capacity, for us to do 
the same ; or rather, in the exercise of his sover- 
eignty as God and his vested rights as Redeemer, to 
bring us up through these capacities into likeness to 
himself (1 Cor. xv, 44, 49). This is all we have to 
say under this head. The material difficulties are 
so utterly silly that we doubt the propriety of any 
Christian philosopher undertaking to combat or ex- 
plain them away; it is best to leave them, like most 
of their class, to dissolve in the light of Christian 
intelligence. 

We, therefore, continue the history in the resur- 
rection period. No intelligent reader of the Apoca- 
lypse can fail to perceive that the relations between 
the resurrected and living men soon begin to grow 7 
intimate. The first paeans of praise after the advent 
(Rev. v, 9-14) are interresponsive between the oc- 
cupants of heaven and the inhabitants of earth. 
The hundred and forty-four thousand selected from 
among living men follow Jesus wherever he goes ; 
and the great beast blasphemes the tabernacle of God 
with men and the citizens of heaven wherever they 
appear. Why this change? We must go into the- 
ology a moment. When Jesus resurrected his own 
body he broke the power of Satan, but the fact was 
not pressed upon his notice ; neither is it brought 
before the universe until, in the advent, the voice 
of Jesus bids all his sainted dead put on their bodies 
afresh and come to him. The links of death's 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 241 

broken chain are thrown into Satan's face then, and 
the world is apprised of the fact through the sing- 
ing of the redeemed, " Thanks be unto God, which 
giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus 
Christ." 

Now the bonds of death are broken ; now the 
grave holds against Christ's claim like a rope of 
sand ; now* two hundred millions of Satan's dead 
are resuscitated and turned loose upon the guilty 
inhabitants of the earth, only to be remanded 
to their graves when their task is accomplished, 
Apollyon as willing to see it, perhaps, as to scourge 
them himself, a little later, with the angels of the 
bottomless pit. Whether there are many cases of 
individual resurrection during this period we cannot 
say ; one thing only is clear, that the greater part of 
the martyrs who suffered death during the fifteen 
hundred premillennial years were reserved for the 
resurrection with which that era was introduced, 
for at some time between the advent and the millen- 
nium, as we read in Rev. vi, 9-1 1, the disem- 
bodied souls of martyrs cried out for vengeance on 
their oppressors and were bade to wait till the rest 
of the martyrs should be slain, the last one of these 
(so far as we can tell) having sealed his faith with 
his blood on the eve of the millennium. To the 
end that all these sufferers for the cause of Christ 
should rise and reign with him the first apocalyp- 
tic resurrection is ordered. f This is called the 
" first resurrection " because it was first in that 
period, and after the advent, the election of the 

* We have followed the text, but do not doubt that it is an error 
in the original translation. f See Rev. xx, 4-6. 

16 



242 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



hundred and forty-four thousand, being not a res- 
urrection but a translation from among living men. 
During the ensuing one thousand years we are left 
to infer that there is no resurrection, perhaps no 
death, for all the consequences resulting from the 
fall of man are lifted from the earth finally, and in 
man are definitely suspended — according to some 
feature in the original plan, we suppose — for that 
period, to which Adam's life had so nearly attained, 
of one thousand years. 

This is succeeded by a period, as we have reason 
to think, of one hundred and seventy years, in which 
death must necessarily resume its sway, in which 
conversion will take place, and good men, no doubt, 
suffer, but during which we have no account of any 
real resurrection. John and Elijah had long passed 
that line, and having only seemed to die were 
aroused to a renewal of their spiritual activity by a 
voice from heaven. We decline, in this connection, 
to enter very far into the region of prophecy, but 
even without its aid, and confining ourselves to the 
revelations of the Apocalypse, we find that it is a 
period of tremendous activity, a time of great con- 
cern, when, as in Gethsemane, or on Calvary, it 
would seem to natural eyes that the powers of dark- 
ness must prevail. It is the darkest part of sin's 
dark night before the dawning of the eternal day. 
There is no absolute evidence that it is a period of 
just one hundred and seventy years, but other rea- 
sonable and well-established dates seem to indicate 
about that length of time. 

The great wrath of the devil was, no doubt, pred- 
icated of the interval between his expulsion from 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



243 



heaven (not accurately dated) and his being bound 
for a thousand years, but placed necessarily in the 
latter part of the antemillennial division by the 
declaration, " That he hath but a short time/' 
But would his wrath be less fierce and active when, 
after his confinement of a thousand years, he is 
" loosed a little season," " and shall go out to deceive 
the nations which are in the four quarters of the 
earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to 
battle, the number of whom is as the sand of the 
sea," and compassing with this innumerable army 
" the camp of the saints," determined in one grand 
Waterloo to retrieve the disasters of the past ? 

And when in this period, whatever its length 
may be, intense persecution is shedding its last lurid 
light upon the earth, when, no doubt, " the blood 
of the martyr will still be the seed of the Church," 
and men will " love not their lives unto the death," 
what will be the relation of those who seal their 
faith with their blood to the resurrection? In 
answering this question there is but one thing to 
stagger the reader in reaching his conclusion. 
That is the declaration of our Saviour (John vi, 40), 
" I will raise him up at the last day." At first glance 
this would seem to indicate a postponement of their 
resurrection to the end of the world ; but Scripture 
explains itself, and as we read we see clearly that this 
is the last day of the age and not of the world, and 
all those of whom Jesus then spake shall be raised 
to meet him at his second coming (1 Thess. iv, 
14-18). 

On the eve of the battle of Armageddon, and 
therefore just before the world enters upon the sec- 



244 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



ond paradise for a period of one thousand years, this 
declaration is made by the Holy Ghost, " Blessed 
are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth : 
Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their 
labors ; and their works do follow them." Now, it 
does not follow that these will be resurrected indi- 
vidually, but more likely in a body, when the imme- 
diate preparations are being made for Armageddon. 
At any rate they are more blessed than all the ante- 
cedent dead, because their resurrection is immedi- 
ate, "and their works do [immediately] follow them." 

Just before this time the last recorded offer of 
mercy is made by an angel up out of the reach of 
bad men. See Rev. xiv, 6, 7. If any submillen- 
nial offer is ever made we do not find it in the rec- 
ord ; neither do we find any limit to the benediction 
we have quoted above. We therefore reasonably 
conclude that in the last moment, before the fire 
comes down from heaven and destroys the armies of 
the wicked, a man may repent and espouse the cause 
of Christ ; in which event he would be instantly put 
to the sword by the enemies of the cross, and then 
be as instantly resurrected and take his place in the 
ranks of Jesus Christ. 

Let us pause here a moment and see where we 
are. 

There remains now but one other resurrection to 
consider, the last. We have passed in our chronology 
the first, as we suppose, twenty-five hundred years. 
We have shown that there were no wicked raised 
then. We have passed the second, or apocalyptic 
resurrection of those who should live and reign with 
him during the millennial period, a thousand years. 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



245 



And now it is entirely consistent with the analogies 
of the past, first, that during this "brief period" 
there should yet be no resurrection of the wicked, 
still slumbering till " the judgment of the last day," 
but that the righteous individual who dies, now 
that death has resumed its sway, should be indi- 
vidually and immediately resurrected that he may 
join Christ. 

There remains, therefore, now only one extended 
resurrection, that of the unjust. It embraces the 
wicked class from the beginning of the world to the 
end of time. But it is exclusively that of the 
wicked, for there are no others left to rise. There 
is not a righteous man in it. 

And now lest there should be any doubt in the 
reader's mind, any lingering of long-preoccupying 
impressions to the contrary, let us go back and see 
how far the Scriptures will sustain us in the posi- 
tion that this is exclusively the resurrection of the 
wicked. 

We are not of those who believe that immortality 
is conferred in the resurrection, but rather that it 
inheres in the nature of the soul for better or worse. 
The life and death of the soul are comparative terms, 
neither of which involves the discontinuance of its 
being. Now, it will be observed that when Jesus says 
he is " the resurrection " he also says he is " the life." 
The reason of this is now obvious ; up to a certain 
point resurrection means life; all who have been 
resurrected prior to that time have been resurrected 
to eternal life. This is what Paul calls "the power 
of his resurrection M (Phil, iii, 10), or " the likeness 
of his resurrection M (Rom. vi, 5), or " a better resur- 



246 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



rection " (Heb. xi, 35). That of the last day is 
inevitable, that of which Paul speaks attainable. 
Therefore Paul sought to " attain to the resurrec- 
tion of \_from among\ the dead " (Phil, iii, 11). 
Christ probably conferred immortality on his own 
body when he raised it from the grave, for having 
once been made subject to death it had to be raised 
again above the death line. The immortality w r hich 
he brought to light is possibly the immortality of 
the body when reunited with the soul in the resur- 
rection. In body and spirit we become the " chil- 
dren of God, being the children of the resurrection" 
(Luke xx, 36). This is a reasonable paraphrase of 
what Jesus said to Martha: I am the resurrection 
and the life, he that hath faith in me, though he 
was dead in Adam, shall take on life again, and be- 
lieving in me and taking on that life fully in the 
resurrection he shall die no more. This agrees 
with the inspired declaration (Rev. xx, 6), " on such 
the second death hath no power." Thus it is that 
" death is swallow T ed up in victory." It is not con- 
trary to the will of God that we should be " in this 
tabernacle" of "flesh and blood which cannot in- 
herit the kingdom of God," but it is not according 
to his will or his plan, past or present, that we 
should stay in it. God made Adam to live a thou- 
sand years and then eat of the tree of life and live 
forever, changing as the living saints will change 
when Christ comes. Adam forfeited all that and 
died before the thousand years had expired, away 
from the tree of life, and rotted away by slow com- 
bustion, " dust to dust." If Adam's pure body was 
an embargo for a thousand years, what must our 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 247 



depraved bodies be ? What wonderful things Paul 
reveals ! " Whilst we are at home in the body, we 
are absent from the Lord;" being dead, we are 
" absent from the body, present with the Lord," but 
" present or absent we may be accepted of him ; " 
being accepted of him, " whether we live we live 
unto the Lord or whether we die we die unto the 
Lord ; " " The Lord knoweth them that are his ; " 
" And the dead in Christ shall rise first ; " those 
which are alive and remain " shall all be changed 
in the twinkling of an eye," and " shall be caught 
up together with them in the clouds, so shall we 
ever be with the Lord " in bodies " made like unto 
his glorified body." What a chain ! It draws through 
life, through death, and up to heaven ! 

The Bible nowhere speaks positively of a day of 
general resurrection as it does of a day of general 
judgment, but only of the resurrection as a univer- 
sal fact. Christ says " Thou shalt be recompensed 
at the resurrection of the just " (Luke xiv, 12). 
This admits (not to say intimates) that there may 
be another resurrection, not of the just. It is true 
he says, " All that are in the graves " " shall come 
forth ; they that have done good, unto the resurrec- 
tion of life ; and they that have done evil, unto the 
resurrection of damnation " (John v, 29). This read 
casually, as we generally read, leaves the precon- 
ceived idea still undisturbed, namely, that all will 
come forth simultaneously and indifferently to meet 
a fate thereafter to be determined ; but a close 
reading shows us that there are two resurrections, 
even though they were simultaneous, for one is 
qualified by " life," the other by " damnation," and 



248 THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 

nothing is more improbable than that they should 
occur together, unless we have absolute testimony 
that they do. So Paul (Acts xxiv, 15) formulates 
the Christian's faith in this cardinal doctrine, "That 
there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of 
the just and the unjust," but he does not say at the 
same time ; on the contrary, in speaking of this 
great event (1 Thess. iv, 13-18) he practically says, 
" When those who sleep in Jesus [none other] shall 
have risen, then immediately we [who are alive in 
Christ] shall be caught up to join them in the air, 
and so shall we ever be with the Lord/' All these 
are saints. There is no place or provision for the 
resurrection of the wicked in this connection, and 
to this Paul (Phil, iii, 11) sought " to attain." We 
turn, in conclusion, to Rev. xx, 5. If the pop- 
ular understanding of this passage is correct, then it 
settles the question ; if not correct, nevertheless it 
settles this much of it, there is at least one resurrec- 
tion exclusively that of the righteous, and another, 
removed not less than one thousand years from it, 
which is that of the wicked. Considering this point 
fully sustained, we leave it. 

There could have been no death or resurrection 
of unfallen man. Jesus Christ, by making himself 
" obedient [subject] unto death/' placed himself in 
a strategic position from which he could accom- 
plish the resurrection of his own body, he having 
gone into the grave because he took the place of 
the sinner before the law, and came out because he 
was not one; and herein his resurrection differed 
from all others in that it was absolute and uncon- 
ditional, whereas, all others, being through the 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 249 



Gospel, partake of the nature of the Gospel, out of 
which they have grown, which is therefore " a savor 
of life unto life or of death unto death." In other 
words, is necessarily a "resurrection of life" or a 
"resurrection of damnation ; hence the absurdity 
of modern speculative infidelity proclaiming an- 
other probation after the resurrection. 

Here then is the point of the plan : " Forasmuch 
then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, 
he also himself likewise took part of the same ; that 
through death he might destroy him that had the 
power of death," " whom God hath raised up, hav- 
ing loosed the pains of death : because it was not 
possible that he should be holden of it." Jesus 
Christ personally, voluntarily, and violently broke 
the power of death that he might " deliver them 
who through fear of death were all their lifetime 
subject to bondage, " and to this end " took on him 
the seed of Abraham.'' Again, " We see Jesus, who 
was made a little lower than the angels for the 
suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor ; 
that he by the grace of God should taste death 
for every man." Why? That he might put all 
things under the feet of man, w T ith whom he had 
identified himself, " for both he that sanctifieth and 
they who are sanctified are all of one " (Heb. ii, 
8-17), or as the spirit of inspiration puts it in Col. i, 
22, " In the body of his flesh through death, to pre- 
sent you holy and unblamable, and unreprova- 
ble in his sight." " Through death " here means 
not so much the death of the Redeemer and " tes- 
tator " (though that was also necessary) as the 
death of the man, dead under the law, that he 



250 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



might be raised in the power of Christ's resurrec- 
tion ; for whatever may be the relations existing in 
point of time from death to resurrection, the declara- 
tion of the Bible is emphatic, " children of God [be- 
cause] children of the resurrection." Here then is 
the solution of every form of the vexed question. 
How shall sinful man be qualified for companionship 
with God? The threefold process is herein com- 
pleted : redemption, regeneration, and resurrection ; 
and to this explanation let none oppose the trans- 
lation of the living at Christ's coming, for that is as 
entirely exceptional as that of Elijah, although it is 
but a condensation of the slow and normal process 
(" Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of 
heaven "). Neither is it worth while to object that 
the saint's disembodied soul is with God from death 
to the resurrection, for that also is easily explained. 
When Adam was " formed of the dust " he was, in all 
that so far pertained to his formation, an animal ; 
when God breathed into his nostrils the breath of 
life man became a living soul, which no animal is ; in 
other words, there has been added to his animal 
nature the nature of an angel. The purity man ac- 
quires in the regeneration is that of the soul ; the 
body or animal nature is never pure till resurrection 
makes it so ; " Blessed are the pure in heart : for they 
shall see God." 

The rule is, first the natural then the spiritual ; first, 
to die, then to live — " It is appointed unto men once 
to die, but after this the judgment." The judgment 
of the righteous is " resurrection of life ; " the judg- 
ment of the wicked is u the resurrection of damna- 
tion ; " the one qualifies for heaven, the other de- 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



251 



termines for hell. We return to clinch our argu- 
ment as to the nature of Christ's resurrection, and 
then move up. It is true that Jesus " died once/' 
that he " tasted death for every man," yet " his soul 
was not left in hell [misinterpreted the grave], nei- 
ther his flesh did see corruption," which does mean 
the grave. The brief and pointed declaration of 
the Scripture is that he was " declared to be the 
Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of 
holiness, by the resurrection from the dead." 

And now, leaving the power conferred or mani- 
fested in his resurrection, we will consider briefly 
the agent introduced in the above passage, namely, 
the Holy Ghost. While we freely admit that he is 
the agent of the Trinity in all things through all 
the ages, yet if we were asked what, in our judg- 
ment, would be his principal function during the 
period now under consideration, believing, as we 
have elsewhere explained, that many of his offices 
will then be abrogated, we should unhesitatingly 
say, the administration of the resurrection. If the 
above passage is not conclusive as to his being the 
agent of our Saviours resurrection, surely the fol- 
lowing is : " For Christ also hath once suffered for 
sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us 
to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quick- 
ened by the Spirit " (1 Peter iii, 18). And so, apart 
from the presumption that he who was the agent 
of the Saviours resurrection will be the agent of all 
others, we have in Rom. viii, 11, " But if the Spirit of 
him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, 
. . . shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit 
that dwelleth in you." If we have a right under- 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR. 



standing of this Scripture, the Spirit which lead- 
eth us and beareth witness with our spirits will real- 
ize the expectation of the creature in the " manifes- 
tation of the sons of God." He who hath begotten 
our " hope M shall also deliver us from the bondage 
of corruption " into the glorious liberty- of the 
children of God." when we shall enjoy complete 
adoption in the redemption of our bodies. And as 
all this is to be fulfilled anywhere between one 
hundred and twenty-five hundred years before the 
last resurrection and final judgment, we pause again 
to consider the status of resurrected saints in the 
meantime. 

In the Apocalypse we find no mention of the 
second coming of Christ, for the reason that it had 
occurred anterior to the plot of that wonderful 
drama which is evidenced by these three things : 
First, we find him, not on the mediatorial seat, but 
on the throne of his glory: mediation is over. 
Secondly, the redeemed of even* nationality are 
there, kings and priests prepared to reign with 
Christ on the earth, which cannot be till after 
Christ comes again. Thirdly, that in all the list 
of things thereafter to occur there is no mention of 
the second advent, the most important event be- 
tween the crucifixion and the judgment: it had 
therefore occurred. 

The fact is that all the souls participating in the 
glories of the Messianic kingdom then beginning 
were re-embodied in their eternal condition. In- 
deed, the fact is that as we might propose a drama, 
first supposed to have its plot laid in the court 
of Louis XIV, and then introduce into it pic- 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 253 



tures of antediluvian life, and submillennial life, 
so is the plot of the Apocalypse laid in heaven 
in the preparation for Christ's permanent kingdom 
on earth, and pictures of past time and future time 
introduced into it to fill up the measure of his glory. 
So we will gather from this source as far as possible 
where " the children of the resurrection " will be 
and what they will be doing. 

In the first place, what a grand day it will be in 
heaven when all these guests who have been gather- 
ing around Abraham, the father of the faithful for 
all these ages, " waiting for the adoption" after 
having left heaven for a while in company with 
their Master, return in the image of Christ — " so 
shall zee ever be with the Lord" Let no one think 
of heaven as the stagnation of completion. God 
was never hurried that we wot of, and it will not sur- 
prise us then that a thousand years are given to 
these preparations. We think, magnified as our be- 
ing will be, that it will be true then as now that we 
ought to know a great deal more than we do. We 
would urge upon our readers not much given to the 
speculative and metaphysical to remember that we 
will not be spirits when we shall have undergone our 
last change. The Scriptures are explicit enough on 
that point : " The Lord Jesus Christ shall change 
our vile body y that it may be fashioned like unto 
his own glorious body" As a declaration this is suf- 
ficient ; but the apostle proceeds to give us the 
philosophy of it, "According to the working where- 
by he is able to subdue all tilings unto himself." 
It may, to us, seem a hard thing to convert this 
body into a glorious form of light and beauty, not 



254 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



spirit, but yet superior to all the laws that now gov- 
ern us ; but the idea is Jesus is able to do it ; let us 
rest, with much peace therefore, upon this glorious 
conviction! But we must hurry on. It does not, dur- 
ing this long period, seem to devolve on the resur- 
rected to administer any of the plagues successively 
sent on men during that time, nor to " sever the 
wicked from among the just, " nor to " bind hand 
and foot," nor to " cast into outer darkness " — di- 
vine delicacy seems to forbid. But we think they 
follow " the King of kings " " on white horses/' going 
to the relief of their brethren on the earth. See 
Rev. xix, 14. And after this there follows a period 
of great activity and much satisfaction to those who 
are " ever with the Lord," the thousand years 
when the preservation of perfect peace, perfect ex- 
emption from all the conditions of depravity and 
the consequences of sin (see essay on Millennium) 
shall demand the utmost vigilance of a cosmo-munic- 
ipal government. Jesus said to Cleopas and his 
companion, "Ought not Christ to have suffered these 
things and to enter into his glory ? " This — entering 
in — is de novo, is it not ? A new glory related to his 
sufferings, and not the return to "the glory which 
[he] had with [the Father] before the world was," 
and progressive, is it not? He is the admiration of 
all heaven to-day as the Redeemer of the world, 
whose Mediator he still is ; but of that time he says 
(Matt, xix, 28), " When the Son of man shall sit in 
the throne of his glory/' before which the glory of 
the past must pale, as Paul says, " by reason of the 
glory that excelleth." There are many other things 
our dim perceptions gather from the word of God 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



255 



of which we do not feel at liberty to speak just now. 
Suffice it to say in this connection, we shall be the 
happy recipients of his tokens, the honored dis- 
pensers of his blessings, the trusted administrators 
of his divine executive. 

Whether the dark period in the world's history 
succeeding that we have just described can throw 
any shadow over the soul of the resurrected man we 
are unable to say ; we reason that it cannot, for if we 
can measurably appreciate it now why should we 
be terrified by it then ? • Herein lies our earnest de- 
sire to lay these things before you ; God's purpose 
in revelation is that we, being told the end from the 
beginning, should have a more intelligent faith, first 
believing and then learning to understand, "A more 
sure word of prophecy ; whereunto ye do well that ye 
take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark 
place." 

Thus we have traced from age to age the history 
of the resurrected man ; and now we desire to say a 
few words about the philosophy of the resurrection. 
Of this many a good man will disapprove, at this 
many a skeptic will sneer ; but we feel that we are 
writing, not under inspiration, but under the im- 
pression by which God has signified his purpose to 
guide his people who seek his glory. 

It is not necessary that one particle of the water, 
or resolvable gases, or insoluble minerals in our 
chemical constitution should return to us to recon- 
stitute our bodies. At this point Paul is unusually 
severe : " Thou [caviling] fool, . . . that which thou 
sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, . . . 
but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and 



256 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



to every seed his own body/' Here is the key ; now 
let us proceed to unlock. Our theory is that there 
must be before (in point of time) any and every 
created thing the divine conception thereof, and 
that between this and the created thing conceived 
of there is a formula — not a recipe after which these 
things are made, but an underlying essence out of 
which the law of their being proceeds. Otherwise 
we have a personal deity bronzing the wings of 
beetles by the million and forming the shapeless 
bodies of the infusoria by the billion. To this es- 
sence appertains the natural life, the reproduction, 
the law r s of being, and the laws of condition, over 
which we wonder so much, seeing clearly that some 
unknown law governs the spider, the serpent, and 
the mammal. For we believe that this hidden 
principle appertains to everything that has any kind 
of life, from the fern to the Norway pine, from the 
animalcule to the hippopotamus. And we further 
believe that this underlying essence, whether 
distinctive creature or not, is resolvable into the 
unrelated elements as are the constituent gases 
of material things. 

Now for its application to man. Man is com- 
pounded. The first wedding in paradise was the 
marrying of an immortal and angelic nature to the 
animal man, whereby the animal and secondary 
nature acquired conjugal rights to the immortality 
and other essential property of the spirit ; which 
rights it lost in the divorce, and " the creature was 
made subject to vanity" the vanity of dissolution, 
the degradation of decomposition. Thank God 
that he " subjected the same in hope." The body, 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



257 



with its animal life and appurtenances, fell back to 
the animal level, of which God reminded Adam and 
Eve in the presence of Satan, " For dust thou art, 
and unto dust shalt thou return." But here the 
vested rights of Christ, the purchaser, come in ; the 
probation of natural life was stipulated for, the joint 
gifts of the Holy Ghost were determined upon, and 
lastly, as a convenience, that the essential principle 
should not be dissolved but with its concomitant 
the natural life should inhere in the soul, that at 
any time the appertaining body might be renewed. 

This explains every mystery in the connection. 
Does Jesus desire to raise Lazarus and restore him 
to natural life? The ravages of oxygen and previous 
inroads of disease are instantly repaired and the 
body is, in its normal condition, indispensable to 
life, and the essential principle, never resolved, in- 
fuses the life, never destroyed, into that body again, 
and Lazarus stands up ; and it should not be forgot- 
ten that this principle of life originated with Jesus 
Christ ; he is " the life." And again, is he himself 
in his human nature dead? The Holy Ghost, who 
was his agent in the resurrection of Lazarus, com- 
mands the underlying principle of his natural life to 
resume its sway, which it does, and he is resurrected 
to his former condition, which condition is forever to 
continue ; for the natural life and the natural body 
and the underlying principle are still with him ; hence 
we are raised " in the likeness of his resurrection." 
And when the time for the " resurrection of the just " 
has come each soul is directed through these chan- 
nels to resume its body, and instantly the principle 
that slowly constructed the body at first reconstructs 
17 



258 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



it now, and " in the twinkling of an eye " it is 
changed together with undecayed bodies and " raised 
into the other, a glorified body;" now above the 
oxygen line, remarried to the soul, never to be 
divorced again, " Neither can they die any more, for 
they are equal unto the angels, and are the children 
of God, being the children of the resurrection 9 
(Luke xx, 36). 

We pause here to consider this guarantee of ex- 
emption from death through resurrection. Why 
can we not die any more because we are the chil- 
dren of the resurrection ? The first Scripture we 
find bearing on this question is, " And as it is ap- 
pointed unto men once to die, but after this the 
judgment; so Christ was once offered to bear the 
sins of many ; and unto them that look for him 
shall he appear the second time without sin unto 
salvation " (Heb. ix, 27, 28). The sense of this is 
that there is only one death (natural), only one 
judgment and, of necessity, one (intervening) resur- 
rection; only one atonement, already made, and 
that he shall come the second time bearing nobody's 
sin, for the one purpose of salvation ; and the mean- 
ing compressed into the one word " salvation " is the 
completion of the salvation which he had begun. 
This divinely perfected plan is therefore the ground- 
work of the divine assumption, " Neither can they 
die any more, being the children of the resurrec- 
tion. " In other words, there are no two deaths 
(natural), no two lives (natural and probationary), 
no two atonements (one vicarious, the other purga- 
torial), no two resurrections, but one only absolute, 
coextensive with death and judgment, and accord- 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



259 



ing as each man has made it, " resurrection of life" 
or "resurrection of damnation." 

The last Scripture bearing on the above question 
is found in Rev. xx, 6: " On such the second death 
hath no power." And here the question naturally 
arises, What is the second death, and how is it re- 
lated to the resurrection ? The believers in the an- 
nihilation of the body of the wicked say that the 
second death must, by the law of analogy, be like 
the first, as the first, under the same law, must have 
been typical of the second. This is reasonable and 
yet not easy to establish clearly as to what we call 
spiritual death, any more than it is easy to recon- 
cile this second death as the penalty of sin, with 
the probabilities of the original plan or the prac- 
tical revelation of the atonement. But if the 
analogy can be extended somewhat, and it can be 
shown that the second death, like the first death, is 
no part of the penalty but only concomitant thereto ; 
if it can be shown that the resurrection of the 
wicked is in its essentiality one of condemnation, 
and in its economy a simple convenience to the Son 
of man, their Judge, their bodies not having been 
otherwise elevated since the divorce ; then we can 
readily see why and how God shall remand them, 
their bodily nature and underlying principle of be- 
ing alike, to dissolution in the resolution of eartk's 
elements by fire ; and this would be material anni- 
htlation and meet the demands of Rev. xx, 14: 
" This is the second death." 

We would say no more on this subject if we did 
not fear some misapprehension. In this light of 
the subject we can realize that souls made to in- 



260 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



habit bodies, having lost them in death, and then 
realizing that in the resurrection they could have 
had their bodies back again, made like the glorious 
body of the Lord Jesus, clothed upon with immor- 
tality, but having them briefly and only to meet 
their Judge, and then forever losing them ; going 
out as Cain from the presence of God in branded 
nakedness of shame, forever excluded from the 
presence of their Maker, his kindness, his com- 
munion, his glory, and his power — we can, we say, 
dimly realize the anguished restlessness of their 
wanderings through space whether their "hell burn 
hot or frore." 

We have now to the best of our judgment ex- 
hausted the subject of the resurrection from our 
standpoint, and with a brief resume we conclude. 

There has been but one resurrection in the world 
up to this time, that of Jesus Christ. There will be 
no other till he shall come again ; then the righteous 
dead will be aroused from their graves and the living 
righteous changed to meet him in the air. This 
breaks up Satan's relation to the grave, and resur- 
rections of the righteous may occur at any time 
thereafter; there is thenceforward no rule. 

There is evidently another extended resurrection 
in the beginning of the millennium of the martyred 
dead — from the second coming of Christ till that 
time — some fifteen hundred years, we suppose. 
See Rev. xx, 4-6. These are the men who unite 
with the one hundred and forty-four thousand, 
charged while living to assist the twelve apostles in 
the administration of the millennium, but not ex- 
clusively. See Rev. ii, 26, 27, and iii, 21. For one 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



26l 



thousand years there is manifestly neither death 
nor resurrection. The incident recorded in the 
eleventh chapter is not a resurrection ; but as the 
widow's son at Nain was restored to natural life, so 
these "two witnesses" were restored from seeming 
death only to their spiritual activity. 

There follows then a period, "a little season," in 
which there is no reference to death or its offset. 
Satan is liberated for a given number of years : 
there is intimation of his activity, of his bitterness, 
of his military plans, but not anything as to what he 
will do in " the power of death " or " the power of the 
grave ; " nothing as to the martyrdom which may 
result from his " great wrath " during the one hun- 
dred and fifty or one hundred and seventy years of 
this dark episode. But it is a reasonable presump- 
tion that in this period resurrections of the righteous 
will constantly occur; for as soon as a convert from 
the ranks of Satan professes Christ he will be cut 
down, then immediately resurrected and join Christ. 
But even after the second coming of Christ no 
wicked will be raised, unless for some temporary 
purpose, to return again to their graves and await 
the trumpet that shall call them alike from land and 
sea, when they will come in a body, receive their 
sentence at the judgment bar, and go into their 
everlasting punishment, whatever that may be. 



262 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



PICTURE VIII. 

(Chapter xiv.) 

FROM the seventh picture, as wild and terrible 
as Salvator Rosa could have made it, as 
grandly gloomy as the conceptions of Martin would 
have had it, we turn to the contrasted picture, as 
bright as heaven's meridian light. The Lamb is 
abruptly introduced, standing on Mount Zion (where 
we have not seen him stand before), with his body- 
guard of one hundred and forty-four thousand, each 
" having his Father's name written on his forehead," 
as set forth in Picture III, chap, vii, 1-8. It is clearly 
conveyed that they were Jews who had consecrated 
themselves, as Paul recommends, since the restora- 
tion. And here let us say to the student of Reve- 
lation, Do not be surprised at any translation or 
resurrection (of the good permanently, of the evil 
temporarily) that may occur in this period of the 
world's history, for the relations of heaven and 
earth are to be very intimate then, an obvious com- 
mingling of things earthly w r ith things heavenly, the 
opposition to God consciously made, and the war- 
fare against Christ conducted before his face. They 
were redeemed from among men — living men. The 
original Church had long been in the skies, " first 
fruits unto God, and to the Lamb." During the 
third period the distinctive appellation and symbol 
of Christ is " the Lamb." In the thirty-first year 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 263 



of the Christian era was found one Nathanael ; in 
the early centuries of the era to come there will be 
found one hundred and forty-four thousand with 
M no guile " in their mouths, " without fault before 
the throne of God." 

" O long-expected day, begin ! 

Dawn on these realms of woe and sin." 

Then follow pictures within pictures, but all are 
antithetical to the seventh. First an angel flies 
through the midst of heaven — the natural sky — 
and for the first time addresses himself to men, 
" having the everlasting Gospel to preach," and if 
he had the Gospel to preach it is natural to sup- 
pose that he preached it and that we have only part 
of his exordium, " Fear God, and give glory to him ; 
for the hour of his judgment is come : and worship 
him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and 
the fountains of waters," which, with a loud voice, 
rang in every tongue on every ear. 

Another messenger announces the fall of Baby- 
lon, of which we have only this to say just now, 
it fixes the date of this part of the picture. Baby- 
lon could hardly have fallen already, as reference to 
the details of Armageddon will hereafter show, but 
the fall was decreed and imminent, and the declara- 
tion a prediction to be presently fulfilled ; but it 
shows that we are in the midst of the Armageddon 
campaign, and, therefore, on the eve of the millen- 
nium. 

The third angel follows, threatening with loud 
voice the worshipers of the beast and his image, and 
says, u If any man worship the beast and his image, 



264 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, 
the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of 
God, which is poured out without mixture into the 
cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented 
with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy 
angels, and in the presence of the Lamb/' 

Fulfillment follows close on the heels of predic- 
tion ; calamity explodes in the condition of neglect, 
for if the angel continued to speak the words of 
the eleventh verse we may suppose that the tense is 
only changed to give greater force to the declara- 
tion, and the reader is transported to and through 
the ensuing period only to witness the continuation 
of their punishment. 

This must be a turning point even in the history 
of hell. " Art thou come to torment us before 
the time ? " said the devils to Christ. The decla- 
ration that there is " everlasting fire prepared for 
the devil and his angels " neither dates nor locates 
the punishment, for the judgment scene in Matt, 
xxv is more than a thousand years later than the 
period we are considering. We do not propose, 
however, at this time to enter upon any disserta- 
tion on hell, present or past, but only to call atten- 
tion to the following most vivid revelation, the 
beast and the false prophets being cast into hell 
(see xix, 20, also xx, 10), and, as we now see, each 
and every individual who had worshiped them, or 
received their mark, also being there. " The smoke 
of their torment [is to ascend] ascendeth up [in 
their restlessness] forever," " in the presence of the 
holy angels " — here meaning the redeemed — " and 
in the presence of the Lamb," that is, during the 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 265 



period when he reigns with his saints and " rules 
the nations with a rod of iron." And may we not 
suppose that this punishment is visible also to the 
men then living? This being conceded we have 
the remarkable declaration that during the peaceful 
reign of the Messiah for one thousand years on the 
earth the torment of the wicked, cast into hell 
after the battle of Armageddon, goes on before the 
eyes of living men, both good and bad. 

Then comes in the exclamatory, but communi- 
cative, soliloquy of John. We say communicative 
because John intentionally put it into the text, 
although it is but the exclamatory expression of his 
passing thought. " Here is the patience of the 
saints : here are they that keep the commandments 
of God, and the faith of Jesus/' 

The curtain here falls, and from behind it John 
hears a voice, adding this to his reflection: " Write, 
Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from 
henceforth : Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest 
from their labors ; and their works do follow them." 
As " the Spirit " is again introduced it may be well 
at the close of this chapter to give a concise and 
relative history of the Holy Ghost. 

Now, as to what the Spirit said : we are sorry to 
deprive our funeral orators of any part of their 
pathos ; but while the saints of all ages have been 
blessed in that they have died in the Lord a mere 
reiteration of that fact would be as superfluous as 
for us to say. From lienceforth blessed are they that 
have water to drink ! The truth is, these words 
have never yet been spoken — that they will be is 
part of the unfulfilled prophecy of the book — and 



266 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR 



the reason why they can be appropriately said just 
before the millennium is that men will then die in 
full view of an immediate resurrection and the 
glory that awaits them. 

The curtain rises and the approaching end is 
typified by the double dramatic allegory of a har- 
vest of the good and a vintage of the bad ; it re- 
minds us of Matt, xiii, " The harvest is the end of 
the world ; " " The reapers are the angels ; " " Gather 
the wheat into my barn," etc.. and of Him that 
treadetJi the wine press alone ; and so ends the 
picture where most of them close, at the end of the 
world. 

We have a friend who at this point always stum- 
bles, assuming that in Matt, xiii, 40-50, he has in- 
dubitable evidence that at " the end of the world" 
"the wicked" and "the just" are simultaneously 
and summarily disposed of, not appreciating that 
the thing which in the literal parable but covers an 
hour may in its allegorical teachings embrace a 
period of unknown centuries. 

At Christ's coming all the righteous of all ages 
will arise from the dead, and enter then upon some 
new and ever-with-the-Lord relation, whereas the 
wicked — as much damned as dead — continue only 
in a negative relation and unaffected status for ages 
yet to come. God's word teaches us that there are 
yet other changes for both good and bad, other 
eras, other ages ; that the harvesting of the grain, the 
sorting of the fish, are not the task of an hour, but 
of successive epochs that slowly evolve the eternal 
purposes of God and constitute, in their totality, 
the end of the world. 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



267 



Abstract Treatise. 
THE HOLY GHOST. 

We briefly venture in this essay on what must 
ultimately be the theology of the Church, as one 
earnestly seeking more light, for our appreciations 
of the Trinity are, at present, far too vague to be 
satisfactory to ourselves, clear to the popular mind, 
or adapted to the instruction of our children. 

Whatever may have been the differentiation be- 
tween the first two persons of the Trinity which 
made them relatively Father and Son, one thing is 
logically clear, such differentiation must have ex- 
isted when the Holy Ghost proceeded from the 
Father and the Son. Assuming that no question 
will be raised here, we proceed, for evidently such 
threefold difference existed when "the Gods cre- 
ated the heavens and the earth." We premise the 
fundamental doctrine of Christianity (for we are 
writing for believers only), namely, " The Lord our 
God is one Lord " (Mark xii, 29), but would cite 
some Scriptures setting forth the distinctive person- 
alities of the triune God. In the first place, we 
read in Gen. i, 31, "And God saw everything that 
he had made, and behold, it was very good." This 
leading proposition, that God made everything, we 
find often and variously repeated. John says (John 
i, 3), " All things were made by the Word." Paul 
says (Col. i, 16), " For by him were all things cre- 
ated that are -in heaven and that are in earth, all 
things were created by him," that is, "the Son," 



268 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



whereas Moses had originally said, " The Spirit of 
God moved upon the face of the waters [deep]." 
We have, therefore, a plurality in the plan, and a 
Trinity in the specifications. Beginning with this 
broad foundation, w T e readily trace, in the infallible 
word of God, from the creation of the world to the 
resurrection of Jesus Christ, the agency of the Holy 
Ghost. 

Now we come closer. Did not the Holy Ghost, on 
the day of Pentecost, assume a new relation in the 
work of the Trinity? Was he not sent that day by 
the Son and the Father, and to assume a new rela- 
tion? "Whom I will send unto you from the Father, 
even the Spirit of Truth, which proceedeth from 
the Father " (John xv, 26). Clearly he was, and 
this new relation, as we learn from the word of God, 
was sevenfold in its character, making him the 
" Persuader : " "And I, if I be lifted up from the 
earth, will draw all men unto me," that is, through 
the Holy Ghost — there is no other way — " Quench 
not the Spirit;" the " Regenerator : " " Verily, 
verily, I say unto you, except a man be born of 
water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the 
kingdom of God;" the "Witness:" " The Spirit 
itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the 
children of God;" the " Comforter : M "The Com- 
forter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father 
will send in my name ; " the " Reprover : " " When 
he is come, he will reprove the world of sin," etc.; 
the " Instructor: " " But ye have an unction from 
the Holy One, and ye know all things" (1 John ii, 
20); the "Illuminator:" " After ye were illumi- 
nated " (Heb. x, 32) ; " Happy are ye ; for the 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 269 



Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you " 
(1 Peter iv, 14). 

All these relations were new in the divine econ- 
omy, and limited to that period extending from the 
ascension of Christ to his return " in like manner; " 
from the time of which he said, " I leave the world 
and go unto the Father," to that time of which 
he says, " I will come again and receive you unto 
myself, that where I am, there ye may be also." 

This present period, then, is the dispensation of 
the Holy Ghost ; and we assume that all well-bal- 
anced nonsectarian theologians will admit it. As 
to the rest, what does it matter ? The opinions, or 
rather the contentions, of men who set out with the 
resolve that all Scripture shall bend to, and agree 
with, the sectarian dogmas of their several creeds 
are worse than useless to the honest student of the 
word of God, blockading, as it were, with the carcass 
of their own prejudices the avenues of light and 
knowledge. 

Now a word as to the limitations, on general 
principles. If the Holy Ghost had been, according 
to the Scriptures, appointed to a new relation, then 
it is consistent with these Scriptures, and all the 
analogies in the premises, that the appointment ex- 
pire by limitation, or be superseded by some new 
and diverse relation. And further, is it not proba- 
ble, to say the least of it, that if the Comforter will 
not come except Jesus depart (see John xvi, 7), so 
when we shall see him (Jesus) again, and he shall 
show us plainly of the Father, the Comforter will 
in turn depart ? Or again, if the Comforter re- 
proves the world of righteousness because jesus 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



goes to his Father and we see him no more, so 
when he returns from the Father, and we see him 
again, is it not presumable that the office of the 
Comforter will cease because the conditions no 
longer obtain ? We think this three-cornered in- 
ference approaches very close to a demonstration. 

This brings us to our point of interest, namely, 
the relation of the Holy Ghost to the apocalyptic 
period. We hold that all his functions in the hearts 
of men as set forth in his commission (chiefly in 
chaps, xiv, xv, and xvi of John) will cease when 
Jesus comes back to be with his followers in person 
again. We assume here, as we argue elsewhere, 
that there is to be a long period after Christ's com- 
ing, corresponding in duration with that in which 
we live, and that the relations between heaven and 
earth will then be so intimate, and Jesus so con- 
stantly before the eyes of men, that they will 
thenceforward be judged by the sight of their eyes, 
and that the above mentioned functions of the 
Spirit will cease, being superseded by the personal 
presence of Jesus Christ evidently set forth. The 
exercise of faith itself will be forestalled, for it will 
no longer be true that eternal things are unseen, 
the fruits of the resurrection and the realities of 
another world being patent to the eyes of living 
men, God openly manifesting himself with plagues 
and punishments of opposition and contumacy such 
as he visited upon Pharaoh; and that conscience 
even will be lost in consciousness, men opposing 
what they know and blaspheming what they see. 
We therefore conclude that most of the offices 
of the Holy Ghost which we have had under con- 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



271 



sideration will be abrogated at the second coming 
of Christ. 

Having spoken of the offices of the Holy Ghost 
which are to be abrogated at the coming of the 
Lord, we now desire to speak of those which de- 
volve upon him de novo. The part he has played 
in the revelation now under consideration is pe- 
culiar. Under the head of " Illuminator " he has 
always inspired the prophets, making his commu- 
nications variously but always with supernatural 
directness to their consciousness. Under this head 
he makes revelations to John in Patmos in such 
peculiar manner that his agency is not plainly ap- 
parent ; but the revelation seems to come from 
Christ himself, to whose functions it does not ap- 
pertain to reveal. The style of the revelation itself 
is unique, as its fulfillment must be novel, apper- 
taining, as it does, to another era in the world's 
history. 

We will first endeavor to prove that these revela- 
tions are made by him for Christ, the Lord Jesus 
sometimes adding his indorsement or making com- 
munications himself. And thus we have the argu- 
ment. Behind the dramatic scenes — which we un- 
derstand to have been prepared in heaven for 
John's spiritual eyes — there must have been some 
manipulating power which is nowhere mentioned. 
God is mentioned, Christ is mentioned, the angels 
are, the elders and the four beasts, but none of 
these are managers; moreover, all of these are repre- 
sented as taking some voluntary or delegated part, 
and are particularly designated when doing so. 
But there is one voice, a potential voice, that 



2 72 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



speaks in the temple, that is uttered from between 
the horns of the altar. This voice is nowhere 
ascribed to any bodily form or visible personality. 
Whose voice is this ? 

The field of prophecy has always been the 
domain of the Holy Ghost ; men spake as they 
were moved by the Holy Ghost, and prophecy is 
divinely concrete, for the angel said, " The testimony 
of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy/' Passing over 
the uninspired preface of the Apocalypse and 
through the prologue of John, written after the 
revelation, for it contains its summary, the history 
opens with these words: " I was in the Spirit on the 
Lord's day." Preliminary preparation, therefore, 
in John was the work of the Holy Ghost. Seven 
times in the messages to the " seven churches of 
Asia" does the Spirit declare himself to be the 
speaker and Christ the author of what is said ; 
seven times in showing the things which must be 
hereafter does a voice proceeding from no visible 
source make declarations or give directions obeyed 
in heaven ; seven times is some agency attributed 
to the Spirit by name. There is perfection in seven, 
there is completeness in a triangle, and here are 
three times seven testimonials to establish one 
fact. The Holy Ghost was the manager, artist, 
and manipulator of this wonderful rehearsal pre- 
pared for John between heaven and Patmos. This 
is all we need to say in evidence of the Spirit's re- 
vealing agency. Now a few words as to his peculiar 
qualifications for this part of the work. 

Among the prerogative agencies of the Spirit now 
is that of " Witness:" "It is the Spirit that bear- 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



2/3 



eth witness, because the Spirit is truth ; " " After 
that ye believed ye were sealed with that Holy 
Spirit of promise ; " " Born of the Spirit," " begot- 
ten again into a lively hope," 44 which hope ye have 
as an anchor of the soul " And [this] hope maketh 
not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad 
in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given 
unto us;" "Ye have received the spirit of adop- 
tion, whereby we cry, Abba, Father ; " 44 The Spirit 
itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are 
the children of God ; " 44 Likewise the Spirit also 
helpeth our infirmities; 9 9 4 4 The Spirit itself maketh 
intercession for us with eroanin^s which cannot be 
uttered ; 99 and u He that searcheth the hearts know- 
eth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he mak- 
eth intercession for the saints according to the will 
of God." 

This chain of inspired links unites the Spirit's 
knowledge with his revelations and puts his power 
behind his promises ; in other words, sets forth his 
infinite qualification to be the witness of justifica- 
tion, in that he knoweth the mind of God, for he is 
God. The infallibility of the Christian's hope is 
based upon its being shed abroad in our hearts by 
the Holy Ghost which is given unto us, the Spirit 
being practically that God who changeth not, and 
who cannot lie, and to whom the end is known 
from the beginning. Upon the same principle the 
absolute reliability of these revelations grows out 
of the fact that one divine master mind manages 
the whole and controls alike the promise and the 
fulfillment. In other phraseology, not inappropri- 
ate to the dramatic character of the Apocalypse, 
18 



274 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



He who directs the rehearsal has already cast the 
play. 

If we have proven that the Holy Ghost was the 
revealer of that history of the future which John 
was required to write, if he was the manipulator of 
the w r onderful tableaux vivant by which, through 
John, the things to be hereafter were made clear, 
then it devolves upon us next to prove that he will 
be the administrator of the things predicated, when 
the time of fulfillment shall come, and to make the 
points of difference between his work then and 
previously. 

It is true he w r as always the administrator of puni- 
tive providence in common with all which apper- 
tained to his universal agency ; but those punish- 
ments, which were broad and marked, belonged to 
a dispensation anterior to our own. They could 
not in the same manner occur in the dispensation 
of faith, when his work was in the heart of the in- 
dividual, bringing the words of Jesus to his remem- 
brance or persuading him in the direction of his 
merciful provisions. 

Let us consider the wholesale punishments of 
those days. Was an army of the aliens coming 
against the beloved city? The Spirit's minister 
smote one hundred and eighty-five thousand in one 
night, of those whose destruction was consistent with 
justice. Do the haughty Egyptian taskmasters re- 
fuse to let God's favored Israel go? The Spirit 
sends plague after plague (adumbrative of those yet 
to be inflicted on a guilty world) upon those sin- 
ful usurpers. Do a cluster of cities make themselves 
a moral ulcer upon the earth ? The Holy Ghost 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



275 



midway between earth and heaven sends the flame 
that burns the product of their sin and digs the 
grave of their inquity. Does a world of mankind 
so corrupt itself on the earth that removal is de- 
manded by the wisdom and justice of God ? The 
Spirit's omnipotent hand is laid upon the lever, the 
revolving earth leaps the track, the seas rise and 
roar over the continents, and the earth is washed 
of her inhabitants. 

Such was the nature of the Spirit's work, whether 
he sent the glow of inspiration into the prophet's 
heart or vindicated the prophet and himself with 
fire ; whether he made the mountains smoke, or 
directed the sounding of the trumpet, or bedewed 
the fleece of Gideon, or nerved the arm of Sam- 
son, or framed the chariot of fire that carried Elijah 
above the grave and over the resurrection line. 
Such was his work for four thousand years — his inci- 
dental work, we might call it — closing, as one dis- 
pensation lapped upon another, with the miracles of 
Jesus Christ and his immediate successors, intro- 
ductory to the Gospel. And so the world, through 
the vicarious death and typical resurrection of Jesus 
Christ, passed into the Holy Ghost dispensation of 
persuasion, repentance, and faith. 

Of the existing dispensation, which we call that 
of the Holy Ghost, which is of " faith that it might 
be of grace," we have already spoken, and of the 
Holy Spirit's sevenfold relation thereto ; we there- 
fore pass over this now and consider his relation to 
the ensuing or third dispensation, which is that of 
sight. And in entering upon the consideration of 
that period yet remote, the conditions of which are 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



not yet familiar to the reader's mind, we appreciate 
the difficulty of distinguishing clearly between the 
punitive ministrations of the period yet to come, 
and of that which had passed before the existing 
one began. 

We will endeavor now to point out the differ- 
ence, stating it as clearly as we can, and seeking 
then to sustain our position by the broader exam- 
ples of sacred history, admitting that there is a vein 
of tentative providence running through the admin- 
istration of the Holy Ghost in all dispensations, va- 
rying only as it stands related to the varying condi- 
tions of each. In the first place, it was vindictive 
in the first period, intended to be so ; whereas it will 
be corrective in the last, intended to be so ; in the 
last it will be the retrieving lash, in the first it was 
the destroying sword. This w r ould seem to make 
the work of the first dispensation severer and 
weightier than that of the last, which, however, is 
not true. The increased intelligence of the world 
will embitter the opposition of evil to good and 
intensify the struggle between Christ and Satan. 
Therefore the lash of that period will be keener 
than was the sword of the other. The plagues of 
Egypt were confined to its limited territory, but 
the plagues of the apocalyptic period will belt the 
globe. The second difference we would state sim- 
ply, and leave it without qualification or elabora- 
tion. The inflictions of the first period were inci- 
dental, resultant, and local. Those of the last will 
be parts of a consistent, cumulative plan. 

We will now endeavor to illustrate and prove 
our position. The sudden irremediable destruction 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



of the cities of the plain not only serves to show 
the incidental resultant local character of what God 
through the Holy Ghost then did, but it illustrates 
absolutely our first position ; for although their fate 
seemed for some time to hang suspended in the 
scale of Abraham's faith, yet when the fiery sword 
fell their punishment was their destruction. The 
predicted punishments of the Apocalypse afford no 
parallel case. 

We will take another example, that of the plagues 
inflicted upon Egypt. There was no gospel in any 
message sent to them. Between the strokes of the 
lash there was but one demand, "Let my people 
go." They were not invited to faith, nor incited 
to hope, neither exhorted to reform. There was no 
expression of foreshadowing mercy in the impera- 
tive demand, Your servants or your lives. If you 
arrest us here, and demand the reason for this, we 
answer, the intelligence of that period did not de- 
mand it as the intelligence of succeeding periods 
demand it. Their rewards and punishments were 
meted to them on a different basis ; but this is not 
the subject under consideration. In contrast with 
this is the corrective design of the apocalyptic 
plagues, made evident (apart from the general ar- 
gument) by such passages as Rev. ix, 20-21, " And 
the rest of the men which were not killed by these 
plagues yet repented not of the works of their 
hands: . . . neither repented they of their murders, 
nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of 
their thefts ; " Rev. xvi, 9, " And men were scorched 
with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, 
which hath power over these plagues : and they re- 



278 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



pented not to give him glory ;" Rev. xvi, II, " And 
blasphemed the God of heaven, because of their 
pains and their sores, and repented not of their 
deeds." 

Even if we compare the destruction of Sennache- 
rib's host with the incidents recorded in Rev. xi, 13, 
we find the same principle obtaining. The Assyrian 
hosts were slain by the divine champion to deliver 
Jerusalem of old. The same hand will shake the 
earth on the eve of the millennium to deliver the 
second Jerusalem. But whereas the Assyrians fled 
with the morning light from the sword that had 
silently slain at midnight, in Apollyon's army " the 
remnant are affrighted, and give glory to the God 
of heaven." 

Of the deluge of water, in one dispensation, as 
compared with the deluge of fire, in the other, we 
cannot speak in this connection with any fairness ; 
for when you have grasped the whole subject the 
first and last destruction of the wicked afford uni- 
versal parallel in all their comparisons. This princi- 
ple holds true as to the apparently miraculous power 
exercised in both cases, for doubtless there were mir- 
acles no less in the displacement of the seas, the es- 
tablishment of oblique rotation, and the procure- 
ment of all the phenomena that followed than there 
will be in the spontaneous conflagration of the earth 
and its surroundings, resolution by " fervent heat/' 
and its chemical reconstruction (if such there be) 
into " new heavens and a new earth." 

Nevertheless, we think it remarkable and worthy 
our consideration that there is so little of the obvi- 
ously miraculous in the predicted operations of the 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 279 



divine agent, in that wonderful age to come, and to 
this differentiating peculiarity the writer would re- 
spectfully call the reader's attention. And here we 
ivould pause to say that as we are convinced that no 
miracle can occur now under the divine and therefore 
unchangeable will, so we are inclined to think the 
world will return to miracles no more. As the un- 
biased faith of this dispensation seems to have re- 
quired their cessation, so the dispensation of sight will 
probably require their exclusion. 

Let us run down the line ; think with us for a mo- 
ment. Men are talking now of solar combustion 
and its sources; will they not reach shrewd conclu- 
sions by and by as to when it will expire, and why ? 
a And the sun became black as sackcloth of hair." 
Men speculate much on seismic convulsions and 
witness much of their power. This power has sunk 
islands; may it not sink them all, or, retrenching 
the boundaries of the sea, re-join them to the shore ? 
" And every island fled away." May not its power, 
or other like it, level the mountains with the plain, 
from which science says such power once upheaved 
them? " And the mountains were not found." Ar- 
tesian wells and arbor culture are spreading infant 
verdure over arid plains. What will another century 
do, what will a thousand years do, to " make the 
desert blossom like the rose?" But let us go back 
and start again. The last of the earth's wicked in- 
habitants are not mysteriously slain, like the As- 
syrian host: " Fire [shall we say electricity?] came 
down from God out of heaven and devoured them." 
The Satanic hordes of Armageddon are not slain 
by some silent, swordless angel beyond the ken of 



2 8o 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



man. They are beaten down to death by hail. 
Compare the latter half of Rev. xix with Rev. xvi, 
1 6-2 1. The besiegers mentioned in Rev. xi, 13, are 
slain by the earthquake. Finally, in the plagues 
which antedate the millennium, in the administra- 
tion of the millennial kingdom, in the terrors of the 
world's collapse and final close, we find nothing 
that so challenges our consideration as the idea of 
a free resurrection, for we have always put resur- 
rection clearly within the bounds of the miraculous ; 
but when resurrection becomes as familiar as gen- 
eration will it seem more a miracle to them than 
reproduction seems to us ? 

In returning to our line of thought, which at 
present is the change in the Holy Spirit's methods, 
we must not fail to appreciate Satan's new relation 
to the world and the fact that his new relation be- 
comes a factor in the change worthy of our con- 
sideration. 

Let us consider it in the light of an easy illus- 
tration. Take the preaching of Noah for one hun- 
dred and twenty years, from the deck of his ship, 
as she stood in the stocks, and the preaching of the 
" two witnesses " for twelve hundred and sixty 
days outside the walls of Jerusalem in the last days. 
Noah's audience laughed at him. There were no 
manifestations from God. Noah was devoid of in- 
spiration. The hearts of his hearers were not pre- 
pared for the Holy Ghost ; it was one period in ad- 
vance of faith and two in advance of sight, and 
they laughed and mocked and left him preaching 
to the unfelled forest trees. But the soldiery of 
the devil, who gather around the two witnesses in 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



28l 



suburban Jerusalem will be as fierce as encircling 
wolves, and only to be restrained by fire. 

You may call it speculation if you will, but was 
not the devil resting in his easily won success with 
an infant world and an undeveloped plan ? Had he 
any knowledge in advance of transpiring events — 
the incarnation of the Son of God, the resurrection 
of Jesus Christ, the resurrection of a righteous world 
or his expulsion from heaven (in any capacity)? 
Does not the period we have under consideration 
find him like a ferocious beast at bay? Else what do 
such words as these mean ? — " Having great wrath 
because he knoweth that he hath but a short time " 
(Rev. xii, 12). Bearing this fact in mind, we return 
to our subject. So intense is the opposition which 
he has inspired in the hearts of men toward all 
that is good, that nothing but the cordon of fire 
with which they can surround themselves ad libi- 
tum can preserve them from the violence of this 
rebel host. 

There is no question in any of their minds as to 
these being the resurrected representatives of the 
well-known and much-hated God incarnate, Jesus 
Christ, Governor of the beleaguered city and Captain 
General of the army of the cross. But the open- 
eyed opposition to God by an apostate world 
shows the malign influence under which men will 
be brought by Satanic animus to thus fight against 
God and Christ, with full knowledge of the fact. 
The means of self-preservation seem to be exception- 
ally miraculous, and to be imparted to these resur- 
rected men for this purpose. But our point is this: 
The last flag of truce, inscribed with all the offers 



282 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



of the Gospel, is particularly upheld before these 
people for a period of forty-two months, though the 
madness of their opposition demands that it be 
carefully covered by the guns of heaven. In this it 
differs from the case of Sodom and Gomorrah; from 
that of Sennacherib's host ; from that of the thou- 
sands of journeying Israelites. We do not mean 
to minify in any degree the Spirit's work in the last 
period of the world's history, for if this be the time 
when God shall subdue all things under the feet of 
the Son, till every knee shall bow and every tongue 
confess, then how great must be the work of the 
adorable third Person, through whose agency all 
shall be done ! 

We have spoken much of the mercy and forbear- 
ance of God in a period when, to speak after the 
manner of men, his honor and equity are so much at 
stake ; let us dwell a moment on his unavoidable and 
ultimate severity. 

It is true that we can hardly bring ourselves to 
realize the severer punishments of that period 
when men shall see with their eyes and hear with 
their ears, and yet refuse to be converted, which 
gives to the agency of the Holy Ghost a new as- 
pect, for men have never yet been divided on such 
clear moral grounds, marked for reward, or branded 
for punishment, segregated for safety, or aggregated 
for destruction. But he himself has pictured it all 
clearly to us in these relations. We accept unques- 
tioningly the declaration of the fact as Christians, 
and speculate leisurely upon the methods as philos- 
ophers. 

Now let us briefly consider the difference be- 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 283 



tween his work now and then. He is now the 
Persuader. In that portion of the world's history, 
whether during the administration of the plagues, 
the reign of the millennium, or the brief dark 
period between that and the judgment, there 
will be no need of a persuader. Abraham said, 
" Neither will they be persuaded though one 
rose from the dead ; " these will not be persuaded 
though they have seen two hundred millions of res- 
urrected men. There is no unseen or unknown 
world to be the province of their persuasions or 
their faith ; all is patent, published, and palpable. 
He is now the " Witness." He did not witness to 
James or Paul or John ; Jesus was their witness in 
person, and thus in the latter days Jesus will wit- 
ness to every convert. It will not be expedient for 
him to depart ; he will not send the witness. He is 
now the Comforter : " The children of the bride- 
chamber rejoice when the bridegroom is with them." 
There can be no other comforter when Jesus is pres- 
ent. He is now the Reprover. In that day the 
conscience of the wicked will need no quickening, 
for it will be like that of Judas's, conscious that he 
had betrayed the innocent blood ; and as to the re- 
proving of the righteous, the glance that broke the 
heart of Peter will then reprove. He is now the 
Instructor. When resurrected men mingle with 
their old friends, the angels, and then walk and 
talk with living men there will be no need of an in- 
ward spiritual adviser. He is now the Illuminator. 
Whatever illumination is needed in heaven, on the 
"new earth," or in the period of her regeneration, 
will surely be afforded by the Holy Ghost ; but while 



284 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



the illumination of the New Testament is a little of 
heaven shed into the heart of a man to convince 
him of his new relation to God's kingdom, men to 
whom much of heaven will be opened every day, 
and whose relations to heaven will be growing more 
intimate all the time, will have no need of such as- 
surance. 

There remains, then, but one office of all those 
conferred upon him through the accomplishment of 
Christ's sacrifice and resurrection, namely, that of 
Regenerator. This must continue ; the declaration, 
" Except a man be born again he cannot see [inte- 
riorly] the kingdom of heaven," remains unchanged. 
The last man that is converted on the eve of the 
judgment must be regenerated by the Holy Ghost. 
This only one, therefore, of the seven gospel func- 
tions belonging to the present dispensation passes 
from this part which the Baptist foretold into that 
better part which the evangelist foresaw. 

In considering the offices peculiar to the Holy 
Ghost under the dispensation of the " Regenerator," 
we would say a word first about his general agency. 
If we understand that God, " through the eternal 
Spirit," made the world when "the Spirit of God 
moved upon the face of the waters," then we under- 
stand that all the providential changes wrought in 
it must have been through the same agency. He 
must have applied to the earth the curse pronounced 
upon it ; if the fertility of the previous conditions 
were attributable to him the sterility of its subse- 
quent condition must be equally so. If, then, in the 
Millennium " the desert shall blossom as the rose," 
He will make it thus to blossom. If his hands 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 285 



scooped out the seas and his fingers traced the sin- 
uous bed of the river, then when " the Lord shall 
utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea " 
he shall be the agent ; when the Euphrates is dried 
up to prepare the way for the armies of the East 
he will do it. If he molded and modeled the 
molten mass till it incrusted itself upon the fires 
that still rage in its bosom, and the mountains are 
but the blisters and ragged edges of earth's cooling- 
surface, then when seismic convulsions shake guilty 
cities down upon the wicked, and level the moun- 
tains, and drain the seas, and push the valleys to 
the level of the plain, shall it not be his work ? 

The four great divisions of physical renovation the 
world will undergo preparatory to the millennium 
are : First, the changes into smooth topography ; 
the mountains shall be brought low, the deep places 
shall be filled up. Secondly, the islands shall be 
submerged, the seas circumscribed, and some pro- 
portion of the rivers dried up. Thirdly, universal 
fertility must obtain, that the productions of the 
earth maybe enjoyed without labor. And fourthly, 
the antipathy and malignity of animal nature and 
their material preparation for injury and defense 
will be removed, carnivorosity must cease, for 
" the lion shall eat straw like the ox." All this 
must be the work of the Holy Ghost. 

It is true we have been so long accustomed to 
the gentle offices of the " Comforter" that we can 
hardly realize the return of the Holy Ghost to a 
work more extended and more fearfully and finally 
punitive under a different regime, and for a different 
purpose, but it must be so. Since ever " he moved 



286 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



upon the face of the waters " He has been the active 
agent of the triune Deity in material things, and 
must be till those waters are resolved in the fervent 
heat of the last day. 

To be explicit, we believe that the Holy Ghost 
will administer the plagues of the apocalyptic 
period ; that he will circumvallate the temple and 
its precincts, level the mountains with the earth- 
quake and submerge the islands ; that he will take 
the ferocity out of the heart of the lion when he 
lies down with the lamb, make the wilderness to 
blossom like the rose, renew our Eden, and make 
this world once more the paradise of God ; that he 
will establish the thrones and endow with wisdom 
the resurrected saints to judge the nations of the 
earth ; that he will mount and panoply the hosts 
that ride forth on white horses ; that he will build 
the great white throne and marshal before it the 
manacled hosts of sin ; that he will escort the 
Lamb's wife, in her spotless garments and meekly 
veiled beauty, to the mundo-celestial home of her 
future eternity, and bar the gates of the new Jeru- 
salem against the return of darkness or the intru- 
sion of mutation and sin, when the light of the 
Lamb brings at last the morning of a Sabbath that 
shall never end. Amen. 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



287 



PICTURE IX. 

(Chapters xv-xvii.) 

u r I ^HE seven last plagues," " in [which] is filled 
X up the wrath of God," are not to be re- 
garded as so many additional inflictions. They are 
not ; yet the wrath of God was literally filled up in 
them, as we shall presently show. John, having pre- 
mised this much, proceeds to describe the panorama 
as presented. " And I saw as it were a glassy sea 
mingled with fire ; and them that come victorious 
from the beast, and from his image, and from the 
number of his name, standing by the glassy sea, 
having harps of God. And they sing the song of 
Moses the servant of God, and the song of the 
Lamb, saying, Great and marvelous are thy works, 
O Lord God, the Almighty ; righteous and true are 
thy ways, thou King of the ages. Who shall not 
fear, O Lord, and glorify thy name ? for thou only 
art holy; for all the nations shall come and worship 
before thee ; for thy righteous acts have been made 
manifest." This mer de glace is the first that fig- 
ures in print ; the last that shall be seen in the 
world's history, whether from Alpine heights or 
Zion's sacred crest. 

The chronology of this wonderful allegory is all 
difficult to appreciate. Here is an example : had the 
things of which the redeemed ones sing actually 
transpired, even in the anticipative history of the 



288 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



Apocalypse, which is still future, we could then 
easily determine the date, but so far from that being 
true the preliminary pouring forth of these vials, as 
described in chapter xvi, must necessarily have occu- 
pied some three hundred years, after which those 
who in the meantime have successfully resisted the 
beast and his image (man of sin), sing the song of 
triumph on the eve of the millennium. 

What " the temple of the tabernacle of the testi- 
mony in heaven' ' is, what its relation to the temple 
on earth, if any, and what relation it bears to God's 
undeviating consistency, are open questions, we 
admit, but this seems to us, as nearly as possible, 
the equivalent: the consummation of all God's or- 
dained and revealed plans was unfolded in heaven, 
of which the testimony, the tabernacle, and the 
temple had constituted the progressive symbolism 
on earth. This idea is favored by the final declara- 
tion that by reason of the smoke of God's glory no 
man was able to enter into the temple till the seven 
plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled ; in other 
words, till the inauguration of the second Melchize- 
dek had taken place and the millennium had begun. 

In passing into the sixteenth chapter — the di- 
vision here being arbitrary, and the subject contin- 
ued — we would call attention to the fact that the 
first vial was poured forth on those who were 
worshipers of the beast and of his image, which 
fixes the date, showing that it was very near the 
close of the premillennial period. 

Now, perhaps, we would do well to pause and 
show the relation of the " seals," " trumpets,'' and 
" vials." The seals, of course, are simply so many 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



289 



unfoldings, so many permissions to make known 
God's general plans as revealed in history, past or 
prospective; while the trumpets and vials are so 
many signs or signals of those events as they pro- 
phetically transpire. The seals begin with the begin- 
ning of time and close with the last da}', which is 
done under six seals. The seventh returns to that 
point in the apocalyptic history when the first 
plague is administered under the first trumpet, and 
from that point is simply retrospective and elab- 
orative. The following chronological table is an 
approximation obtained by the equal divisions of 
periods pretty well established. A. P. stands for 
Apocalyptic Period, dating from the second advent. 

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



First Trumpet 200 A. P. 

Second " 600 A. P. 

Third " 1000 A. P. 

Fourth " 1484 A. P. 

INTRODUCTION OF VIALS. 

First Vial 1490 A. P. 

Second " 1496 A. P. 

Third " 1502 A. P. 

Fourth " 1508 A. P. 

COINCIDENCE OF TRUMPETS AND VIALS. 

Fifth Trumpet, Fifth Vial, First Woe 1512 A. P. 

Sixth 11 Sixth " Second " 1514 A. P. 

Seventh " Seventh" Third " 1520 A. P a 



This marks the battle of Armageddon and declara- 
tion of millennial truce of one thousand years. The 
proclamation of Gabriel, including seven thunders 
and ascension of the two witnesses, takes place 
between 151 5 A. P. and 1520 A. P.; closing of 

millennial period and loosing of Satan, 2520 A. P. ; 
19 



290 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



administration of judgment, destruction of the 
earth by fire, and end of all temporal things, 2670 
A. P. 

We know the opinion obtains among bibliolo- 
gists that the seven vials are but a repetition of 
the seven trumpets. This would make the first vial 
identical with the first trumpet. Let us compare 
them (viii, 7) : " The first angel sounded, and there 
followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they 
were cast upon the earth : and the third part 
of the trees was burnt up, and all green grass was 
burnt up." Now the other (xvi, 2): " And the 
first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth ; 
and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the 
men which had the mark of the beast, and upon 
them which worshiped his image." There is no 
resemblance whatever ; moreover, the vial is poured 
out upon men who had worshiped the image of 
the beast, which would bring all these plagues within 
less than half a century, and leave a preceding 
period of fifteen hundred years with nothing to 
mark its history in the Apocalypse, which is im- 
probable. 

The second and third bear considerable resem- 
blance, but have marked differences. The fourth 
trumpet produces a diminution of the light of the 
sun, moon, and stars, all in the proportion of one 
third, which does not at all agree with the fourth 
vial under which men were scorched with great 
heat. 

The coincidence of the fifth trumpet with the 
fifth vial is not deducible so much from their re- 
semblance as from their mutual corollaries. They 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



291 



both, while they are reconcilable, succeed plagues 
not reconcilable ; they both precede a plague of 
vial and of trumpet manifestly identical. There 
are only three of each remaining, and these are three 
clearly separable woes. 

We do not, however, wish to be understood as 
saying that there are no points of resemblance be- 
tween the fifth trumpet and fifth vial. When the 
fifth vial was poured out "upon the seat of the 
beast " his kingdom was full of darkness ; when the 
fifth trumpet was blown " the angel of the bottom- 
less pit " (outer darkness) brought with him a smoke 
" as the smoke of a great furnace ; and the sun and the 
air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit." 
Now, as to the nature of the infliction. When the 
fifth vial was poured out, " they gnawed their 
tongues for pain, and blasphemed the God of 
heaven because of their pains and their sores;" 
when the trumpet sounded, " to them [the beasts] 
it was given that they should not kill them, but 
that they should be tormented five months: and 
their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when 
he striketh a man." So with this cumulative weight 
of evidence we reasonably conclude that these co- 
incide. 

The twelfth verse of this sixteenth chapter and 
the latter half of the ninth chapter present about 
this picture, in their aggregated revelation, that, 
after the sixth angel had sounded his trumpet, the 
Holy Ghost addressed him, saying, " Loose the four 
angels which are bound in the great river Eu- 
phrates ; M " And the water thereof was dried up, 
that the way of the kings of the east might be pre- 



292 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



pared." And we saw this countless host marshaled 
under their old leaders, and they seemed to bring 
the fire and smoke and brimstone of the damned with 
them. Their breath scorched like fire ; the tails of 
their horses were the lash of pain ; their hoofs left 
the imprint of death as like a tidal wave they swept 
over the earth ; and again a third part of men per- 
ished in their sins. 

The going forth of the froglike spirits from the 
mouths of the dragon, the beast, and the false proph- 
et next engages our attention. The independent 
personality of these frogs is a very consistent preser- 
vation of the allegory, for it must not be forgotten 
that the original trio are partly, if not wholly, allegor- 
ical and symbolical themselves, and the personality 
of these subordinate spirits is only derivable from 
the personification of the others. But they are 
great activities, and with great unanimity, appar- 
ently, they go forth to this world-wide work of 
rallying for the cause of sin. 

Yet the apostle says emphatically, " These are 
the wonder-working spirits of devils." So when the 
personification ceases, and the maximum multiplica- 
tion has been reached, and the last analysis is made, 
we have a definite, though unknown, number of in- 
dividual devils, doing what is appropriately called 
" the devil's work." The word of God affords no 
better chapter on demonology than this. The fif- 
teenth verse has evidently gone astray, having no 
connection whatever with its surroundings. It is 
reasonable to suppose that this displacement is 
purely accidental, and its original place will proba- 
bly be found in the third chapter, between the third 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



293 



and fourth verses, or between the twentieth and 
twenty-fifth. " And he gathered them together into 
a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armaged- 
don ; " that is, the dragon did, who seems to occupy 
the place of the first beast, or else the first beast is 
lost to the history. And here we have a ray of light ; 
for if this triple alliance is outside of Satan, then, as 
they proceeded from him, so are they evidently sub- 
servient to him and governed by him. But if in the 
narrative the first beast has been absorbed back into 
his originator, then the dragon dominated this tri- 
umvirate as Caesar did his. Be that as it may, we 
have learned one important fact — Armageddon is in 
advance of the millennium. 

The rest of this chapter, being one of the several 
accounts of Armageddon, we leave to be considered 
under that head. In entering upon the seventeenth 
chapter we have this to say, that the whole of it 
is retrospectively interstitial, relating to what we 
have already considered, and would further say that 
you must exercise your own judgment, dear reader, 
as to the propriety of incorporating this into the 
ninth picture. We do so because the return of one 
of the angels to John, to show him under what cir- 
cumstances the foregoing judgments were visited 
upon the " great whore,'* seems to make it an inte- 
gral part of one general presentation. 

It is said of " the great whore " (church of the false 
prophet) that she sat " upon many waters " (" peo- 
ples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues"), 
and she is described, in brief, as an enriched and 
gaudily arrayed but filthy and intoxicated bawd, 
whose unhallowed relations had extended from " the 



294 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



kings" to " the inhabitants of the earth/' Revolt- 
ing as the picture is in this strong light, we must re- 
member that it is compatible with all that is refined 
and elegant and acceptable among men ; that it is 
simply the picture (as God sees it) of any worldly 
Church, rich, proud, formal, and pretentious, but not 
spiritual ; that every such Church, of whatever de- 
nomination, is but a little whore sitting upon a few 
waters and doing what she can to bring about the 
aggregated result so fearfully portrayed in this pic- 
ture. For, be it remembered, this strong language is 
all figurative, meaning only that the so-called Church 
(bride of the Lamb) is false to her marriage vows and 
conjugal obligations, seeking unholy alliance with 
the world ; ready to be purchased with the price of 
sin ; leaving her husband (Christ) and going after 
her lovers, pride, pleasure, covetousness, etc. " So 
he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness. " 
There can be no doubt, as we have said, that the 
wilderness represents simply appropriate space, 
whether for exercise or exhibition. We can see no 
reason to doubt anywhere that the first six verses of 
tills chapter may describe the Church of Rome, re- 
moved some years from John, but destined to brood 
upon her seven hills (ninth verse) and become for all 
time "the mother of harlots." Her unhallowed 
connection with kings, her royal purple, her sacer- 
dotal scarlet, her exclusive cup, the intoxication of 
her persecution, marked with melancholy clearness 
the Church of unlawful alliances and unauthorized 
indulgences. She accepted the aid that Jesus Christ 
disdained to receive, and has been borne, like a cor- 
rupt and bloated woman, to the success she craved, 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 295 



upon the dragon's back ; but it is evident she has not 
yet fulfilled her destined work nor met her fearful 
end. 

Now mark, the angel said, " I will tell thee the 
mystery of the woman, and of the beast that car- 
rieth her." This is not the only place where the 
Holy Scriptures propose to tell (explain) some mys- 
tery to us, and we both shut our eyes and close 
our ears; but let us make out all our premises 
clearly before we hear what the angel has to say. 
The struggle of Armageddon has already passed 
before us once in this picture ; the next event in 
order is already upon us as recorded in chapter xx, 
but the angel carries us back — for we put ourselves 
in John's stead — to show us how these results were 
brought about. And now we will hear the angel 
speak : " The beast that thou sawest was, and is 
not ; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and 
go into perdition : and they that dwell on the earth 
shall wonder, whose names were not written in the 
book of life from the foundation of the world, when 
they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet 
is." The " beast," or "dragon," or "old serpent," 
or " devil," or " Satan " is already bound ; therefore 
the angel says he "was and is not, and shall ascend 
out of the bottomless pit " (see chap, xx, 3), and 
those dwelling on the earth a thousand years from 
that time, not being of God's children, shall wonder 
when the devil comes back to them in power. " The 
seven heads are seven mountains," seven sources 
and strongholds of power. " Seven kings ; five are 
fallen " — but perhaps we had better reduce this to a 
table to prevent confusion : 



296 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



The four Assyrian kings 

The first beast 

The second beast 



4 

5 

6 



The " image of the beast " 7 

The four kings, and man of sin, being human, are fallen. . . 5 

The first beast " yet is when he comes again it 
will be the eighth manifestation, but he will still be 
one of the seven — the fifth. 

The original beast seems to be inseparably iden- 
tified with Satan. Of him as a beast, it is affirmed, 
at his first appearance (xiii, 5), that he should con- 
tinue " forty-two months" (2520 years). At this 
time, when the angel is speaking, Satan is bound, 
and, therefore, " is not ; " but in his separability 
from Satan he lives through the millennial period 
as hibernating beasts live through the winter 
months; it is therefore said of him, " he is." When 
Satan is loosed the active relation is renewed, and 
in that way the apparent contradictions of the elev- 
enth verse are reconciled ; he " is one of the seven ; " 
he makes an eighth manifestation " for a short 
space " and then goeth into perdition. 

Of the ten kings and all that remains we desire 
to speak under the head of Armageddon, and close 
here our remarks upon this picture, which closes 
with the chapter. 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



297 



Abstract Treatise. 

ARMAGEDDON. 

We have never read any of the numerous books 
and various publications on Armageddon, and do not, 
therefore, know definitely what views are enter- 
tained by others. We would naturally have sup- 
posed, and did long think, that Armageddon was 
the last struggle made by Satan and his human 
allies for the possession of this world ; but closer 
reading has shown us that such a conclusion would 
have overstepped the date by more than a thou- 
sand years. 

We announce the conclusion we have reached, 
and then argue to that point. Armageddon is the 
great battle between the powers of good and evil 
which closes the advent period proper in the over- 
throw of one of the beasts and <k the image of the 
beast," which results in the imprisonment of Satan 
and the subjugation by Christ of the world unto 
himself to such degree that for one thousand 
years he and his saints " rule the nations with a rod 
of iron." 

We purposely refrain from the rich and tempting 
fields of previous prophecy and confine ourselves to 
Revelation, endeavoring to show its developments 
and chronological relations, beginning with that 
promise, which would be very obscure if it stood 
alone: " He that overcometh, and keepeth my 
works unto the end, to him will I give power over 
the nations : and he shall rule them with a rod of 



298 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



iron ; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken 
to shivers : even as I received of my Father M (Rev- 
ii, 26, 27). It is true that Armageddon ends where 
this reign over the nations begins, but it sustains 
to the millennial reign a relation preliminary and 
foregone. 

The first proclamation of the approaching crisis 
we find accompanying the last offer of mercy in 
xiv, 7, " For the hour of his judgment is come," 
and in the following verse the angel declares, as if it 
were an accomplished fact, the rapidly approaching 
destruction of Babylon ; while the third angel fol- 
lows with the announcement that the mark of the 
beast is the seal of God's wrath, unequivocally de- 
claring the result of the approaching conflict, approv- 
ing the patience of the saints, and condemning the 
worshipers of the beast to drink the cup of God's 
indignation, without palliation, amid fire and brim- 
stone and smoke of restless torment in the con- 
scious presence of the Lamb and the holy angels 
forever. 

John had been directed previous to this (xi, I, 2) 
to measure, with the surveyor's rod, the then exist- 
ing city of Jerusalem, beginning with the temple, 
then the court of the worshipers, but to leave the 
outer court, or the court of the Gentiles, uncon- 
sidered because it was destined to be held by the 
enemies of Christ, called — as they indeed will be — 
" Gentiles," who should tread it under foot ''forty- 
two months" The most reasonable interpretation 
of this passage is that the period is literally stated, 
though probably symbolically selected according 
to the wisdom of God, the whole thing being at 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 299 



this period of apocalyptic revelation (not long be- 
fore the millennium) still in the future. We hope 
the reader appreciates the fact that Revelation is a 
history of the world after the second coming of 
Christ, that is, of the last twenty-six hundred years 
of its duration, and that, while there is no consecu- 
tive chronology in it, nevertheless, any given point 
in any picture thereof must naturally and necessarily 
have its chronological relation to any other point in 
that or any other picture. 

Now another thing : this measuring is literal panto- 
mime in the rehearsal in which John evidently acted 
his part, but purely symbolical as to the historic 
facts, when they shall take place. The measuring, 
therefore, came before the representation of the 
siege, but represented no date, whereas the siege 
represents a fact that will take place in the close of 
the fifteenth century after Christ's second coming. 

The next mention we find of Armageddon is in 
xvi, 14-21. The siege of the beloved city had ex- 
tended through three and a half years. John (visi- 
ble to himself in the picture) and Elijah, his fellow- 
witness, had testified for a corresponding period of 
twelve hundred and sixty days. The suburbs of 
the beloved city had been trodden under foot of the 
alien and enemy for the prescribed period of forty- 
two months. Furthermore, by the presence and 
power of the archfiend (xi, 7) the two witnesses 
had apparently been killed, and their bodies had 
lain in the streets three and a half typical days and 
then been revived and taken up to heaven by the 
power of God ; and now the more intense work of 
the evil triumvirate begins. 



300 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



" And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come 
out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the 
mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the 
false prophet. For they are the spirits of devils, 
working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of 
the earth and of the whole world, to gather them 
to the battle of that great day of God Almighty" 
(xvi, 13, 14). That these spirits, represented in the 
panorama by something froglike, are personifica- 
tions we cannot doubt, and that the beast and false 
prophet are largely so is equally reasonable, al- 
though they may have their embodiment as the 
dragon (which is Satan) has his personality. To 
understand that these are influences proceeding 
from three sources, combining their united wisdom 
and power — however exercised and brought to bear 
— is sufficient for a reasonable appreciation of the 
subject, and as near the truth as we can get. 

As the narrative of what John saw in the picture 
goes over the same ground three or four times, we 
are apt to become confused seeking to put these 
several accounts into consecutive rather than con- 
temporaneous relation. To appreciate the situation 
we must tax our imagination to realize, as far as 
possible, the cultivation, the taste, the luxury and 
self-indulgence of a world that has gone on increas- 
ing in knowledge, appliance, wealth, and power for 
more than a thousand years from this time, and 
chiefly in the direction of Hamitic display of 
metropolitan splendor. Think what her " Babylon " 
will be with a hundred times the wealth and wisdom 
of Nebuchadnezzar, and by parity what will the mag- 
nificence of the " cities of the nations" be? And 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 3OI 



looking the other way, how little realization we 
have of the glory of Christ's capital, the Jerusalem 
of those days ! Go to Ezekiel for a description. 
Under these circumstances the vials are rapidly 
poured forth ; all of them probably in the last two 
decades of the antemillennial period, and the cam- 
paign opens which leads up to the siege, and 
through that to the conjunction of the seventh trum- 
pet and the seventh vial and the third woe, which 
unite upon the conclusive struggle ; the length of 
which campaign is difficult of determination even 
by inference. It seems that up to the beginning of 
the siege sin had held undivided sway, but discord 
comes into their counsels, division into their ranks 
(see xvii, 15-18), and God employs, as in much of 
past history, sin to punish sin. Yet it would not 
seem reasonable when Satan comes from the prov- 
inces to the center (see xi, 17), after the labors of 
the two witnesses had continued three and a half 
years, in order to remove this obstacle to the suc- 
cessful prosecution of the siege, that he would have 
left any disaffected body behind him, or any dissen- 
sion brewing which would divide his forces or defer 
the victory over the Lamb and his army after which 
his fierce nature thirsted. 

Let us pause, then, and see what seems to be the 
most natural arrangement of these incidents w r hich 
are recorded here without chronological or consecu- 
tive relation. 

The eleventh chapter of Revelation gives us the 
siege only, with the song of the elders incorporated. 
The twelfth chapter is a panoramic view of God's 
Church as she is developed from the days of Abra- 



302 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



ham to the end of the world. The thirteenth, four- 
teenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth chapters contain a 
history of the last few years before the millennium, 
embracing but not dwelling upon the incidents of the 
siege. Let us briefly consider them. A reference to 
the death of the two witnesses is found in xiii, 7. In 
the latter half of chapter xiii we have account of the 
rise of that false religion which has so much to do 
with the events of that period. In chapter xiv there 
is a sudden transition to the opposite picture. The 
Lamb stands on Mount Zion with his bodyguard sing- 
ing their new anthem, and in rapid succession, like 
the changes of a kaleidoscope, the last proclamation 
of mercy and amnesty, and the annunciation of the 
fall of Babylon, still prospective ; then the declara- 
tion of God's wrath and indignation toward the 
persistently impenitent, embracing the eternity of 
their punishment, which hangs evermore like an 
official notice at the gates of hell ; then the paren- 
thesis of verse 12, " Behold the patience of the saints, 
and how they keep the commandments of God and the 
faith of Jesus ; " then the approach of the millen- 
nium is shadowed forth in the language of verse 13, 
" Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from 
henceforth : Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may 
rest from their labors; and their works do [immedi- 
ately] follow them." Then the two figures of the 
harvest and the vintage close the chapter. 

In the fifteenth chapter there is a going back, a 
century, perhaps, in the song, and in the symbolism 
of the vials and the temple in heaven (gauge of the 
relations between heaven and earth, and for that pe- 
riod inaccessible to men). In the sixteenth chapter 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



303 



there is a running description, in general terms, of 
each successive period, marked by the pouring forth 
of these vials, and when we have reached the fourth 
of these we probably have reached the period in 
which the antagonism between open sin and hypo- 
critical religion springs up, as described in xvii, 
16, 17. This period is symbolized in the pouring 
forth of the fifth vial, and briefly described in the 
summary found between the sixteenth and twenty- 
first verses. The description of the hypocritical 
church as a vile woman (xvii, 1-6) comes in here. 
The description of Babylon, the metropolis of sin 
(more or less literal) (eighteenth chapter), comes in 
here. Then under the sixth vial what may be 
called the geographical or seismic period comes 
under consideration when the earth shall be so vio- 
lently disrupted and remodeled as to involve the de- 
struction of innumerable wicked, as in the case of 
" Babylon," which is thrown down and consumed by 
one of its earthquakes. See nineteenth verse, com- 
pared with xviii, 10-21, and xix, 3. And other " cit- 
ies of the nations fell " w T hile Jerusalem is environed 
by three great concentric chasms (xvi, 19), and " the 
great city was divided into three parts " (compare 
with xi, 1, 2), which results in the destruction or 
conversion of the wicked caught between the second 
and outer chasm (see xi, 13), and in the secure in- 
trenchment of the city against her enemies. These 
cumulative afflictions of the guilty inhabitants of 
the earth constitute the " second woe." 

We call this the seismic period because the con- 
vulsive agencies are so active in God's double pur- 
pose to destroy the wicked and to prepare the 



3°4 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



world for a period when there shall be no wicked- 
ness. Under these conditions the Euphrates is 
dried up (as a large portion of her sister, the Jordan, 
was dried up, probably in Abraham's time), and we 
know not how many other rivers besides, perhaps all 
of them. And under these circumstances, as we 
elsewhere learn, the Gulf of Suez will be obliterated 
and probably much ocean retrenchment take place. 
Every island will be submerged or otherwise 
changed, while the mountains will sink till they 
are adjusted to the level of the plain, which, though 
once a desert, shall then " blossom as the rose." 

We must remember that we are now at the con- 
junction of the sixth trumpet and sixth vial, and 
the revelations are consistent when you can adjust 
the chronology. The angel who has sounded the 
trumpet is directed (ix, 14) to " loose the four angels 
which are bound in the great river Euphrates " (com- 
pare with xvi, 12), and the resurrected hosts of the 
Chaldeans, put (probably by clerical error) at two 
hundred millions, sweep over the earth, succeeded 
by earthquake and fire, and rob and burn the 
whore. We note particularly here that it is diffi- 
cult, as we read this part of the history from several 
different standpoints, to draw a line between the 
sixth and seventh vial epochs, the seventh being so 
much magnified by song and prophecy, but having 
no important natural events to mark its beginning 
as Armageddon marks its close. But in x, 1-7, the 
predictions of the angel, commonly supposed to be 
Gabriel, are evidently made under the sixth, and in 
view of the seventh, and the episode of the little 
book is clearly symbolical of things still future ; but 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 305 



the symbol, the prediction, and the fact are all 
alike within the sixth epoch. Then (xi, 1, 2), the 
episodical and symbolical measuring of the city and 
temple' with reference to its future concentric divi- 
sions by the earthquake (see xi, 13; xvi, 18, 19), etc.; 
then the narrative of the two witnesses, which is 
evidently predictive and not present, closing with 
reference to the earthquake, which is chronologically 
related to the foregoing, but may not immediately 
succeed. Nevertheless, in another picture, embrac- 
ing xvi, 17-19, we have the dividing of Jerusalem 
and the destruction of Babylon brought clearly 
within the seventh epoch, and to all appearances 
immediately succeeding the pouring forth of the 
seventh vial, which carries us back again for confir- 
mation to xi, 14, " Behold, the third woe cometh 
quickly." 

The summary of inference is therefore that the 
siege, which is the great fact leading up to Armaged- 
don, with its incidents, the testimony of the two wit- 
nesses and their recall to heaven, was within the 
sixth epoch, but signaling the pouring forth of the 
seventh vial " into the air, " whereby the circum- 
stances of the then existing period were carried for- 
ward and interwoven with the events of the suc- 
ceeding one from which they were inseparable. 

Now we will return to bring up the history of 
the leading agencies at work on the Satanic side. 
In chapter thirteen, we have the briefly told biog- 
raphy of the two beasts or powers, which is with- 
out date, save that the sixth verse intimates that 
the apocalyptic period may have been far advanced 
when the first manifestation of material agency was 
20 



306 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



put forth by " the great dragon " described in the 
preceding chapter. After the absorption of this first 
beast into himself again by " the great dragon " 
he puts forth another, whose characteristics stamp 
him as being religious, in contrast with the qualities 
of the first, which were political. This second em- 
bodiment had a distinct individuality, responsibility, 
and punishability, and w r as cast into hell, there for- 
ever to remain. See xix, 20. There now seems to 
arise another and contemporaneous one, called " the 
false prophet," literally a "man of sin," who stood 
before the inspired eye of Paul in character but 
without chronology. His relations to false religion 
are defined, but of his power we learn nothing save 
as we infer it from his separable personality and per- 
petuity ; he shared the fate of the second beast and 
stands in the speculative predictions of our time as 
the great captain of his age. 

Somewhere in the history this beast of false relig- 
ion, Satan, is finally excluded from heaven. In the 
history of the Church found in the twelfth chapter 
we have a partial account of this most interesting 
event, and while his defection is recorded in the 
fourth verse as occurring before Christ was born his 
final expulsion from heaven does not take place 
till after the second period of the Church's his- 
tory had begun, or, in other words, till after the 
second advent of the Lord Jesus. The remainder 
of the chapter seems to contain two conflicting 
intimations as to the date of his expulsion which 
I am at present unable to reconcile. The four- 
teenth verse w T ould lead us to suppose that it was 
as soon as Christ had come again, while the twelfth 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



307 



verse says, "Because he knoweth that he hath but 
a short time." If, possibly, the " time and times 
and half a time " of the fourteenth verse may, con- 
trary to analogy, mean three hundred and fifty years 
before the millennium, that will reconcile all the diffi- 
culties, for it seems most probable that Satan's 
more active machinations on earth do not occupy 
more than two or three hundred years before the 
millennium. If we now turn to the ninth chapter, 
where John sees " a star fall from heaven," we prob- 
ably have the expulsion in its historical relations. 
And to him, then or thereafter, was given the key of 
the bottomless pit. The earth was henceforward his 
home and hell his farm. We read in xx, 1-3, 
where he was confined to hell a thousand years, and 
finally in xx, 10, where, after so much of patience 
and respite, he is shut up again forever to remain 
there. 

The very innocent idea obtains in the Christian 
Church that all the world will gradually be con- 
verted, and the peace and felicity of the millennium 
will be the natural outgrowth of universal right- 
eousness. As there is no foundation for this in the 
word of God we suppose the earnest wish of well- 
intentioned hearts must have begotten the thought 
and nursed it to conviction. All God's endeavors to 
save men have failed. On this hypothesis the whole 
antediluvian world perished. On this hypothesis the 
Abrahamic race left the God-forsaken world behind 
them to perish, and carried the exterminating sword 
with them, or were preceded by the destroying 
angel till their persistent disobedience turned that 
sword upon themselves, and out of half a million 



3 o8 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



two men were left to represent the generations 
whose bones were bleaching on the sands. And 
this continued till Jesus said, " Behold, your house 
is left unto you desolate." From out of the moral 
pollution of worse than heathenish Catholicism came 
another exodus of reformation by the power of God, 
which soon began, like lost men, to move in a circle, 
till in all its branches Protestantism is moving, more 
or less rapidly, toward the hole in the pit from whence 
it was digged. Even the more democratic, the more 
active, and, therefore, better preserved branches, 
such as the Baptist and Methodist societies, pre- 
sent, especially in our cities, that most melancholy 
spectacle of rank luxuriance with rotten core. 
And we are far from feeling that we err in our 
judgment or presume in our speech when we say 
this, though Jesus did lay his hand upon the 
mouth of the man who asked, " Lord, are there few 
that be saved ? 99 

We are one of those who conscientiously believe 
that the amount and purity of religion will increase 
with increasing intelligence, and possibly in an in- 
creasing ratio. But nevertheless the increase of 
unsanctified knowledge will increase wickedness, 
and the more knowledge a wicked world has the 
more bitterly will it hate God and the more success- 
fully oppose him. Such has been the history of the 
world so far; such will be its history till a deluge 
of fire shall finally purge it more perfectly than a 
deluge of water did. And wide apart as are these 
two catastrophes, Armageddon resembles the last 
destruction of sinful men more than any manifesta- 
tion of God's wrath that has gone before it in the 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



309 



following particulars : The deluge, although it in- 
volved tremendous changes in climate, and atmos- 
phere, and temperature, etc., is in some degree 
properly as well as popularly understood to have 
been simply for the purpose of removing bad men 
and taking a new start, and the meteorological con- 
comitants are little thought of, little understood. 
And thus we understand the smiting of God's 
sword in every case, whether it be in an hour, as 
that of Sodom or Sennacherib, or like that of the 
Chaldean or the Ottoman, in the progress of the 
ages. But on the eve of the millennium, in which the 
whole policy of God is changed, there is wonderful 
concurrence in the full cup of man's iniquity and 
the necessity for the removal of the wicked lest the 
transformed earth should be cursed with his unfitted 
presence. Albeit, broad as the difference is, broader 
still is the resemblance, for from beginning to end 
they are but higher and more extended applications 
of " tJie survival of tlie fittest y 

We are not now arguing the necessity of a millen- 
nium, neither an " appointed time" for it, but for 
the sake of brevity must assume both. If then the 
millennium must be, and must be at the appointed 
time, this time will, according to the prescience and 
infinite wisdom of God, coincide with the culmina- 
tion of man's wickedness, and justice will demand 
his destruction at the very time when his removal 
is most necessary. 

Once more, Armageddon will not result in the 
destruction of all the wicked who are then upon the 
earth ; far from it. This is evident from the fact 
that, at the close of the millennium, Satan, being 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



loosed, finds followers like the sands of the sea for 
multitude. There is no intimation, no probability, 
of widespread declension; no, the millennium pe- 
riod is full of sinners, but they cannot sin. It is 
not so much a probation during its continuance as 
a truce to overt sin and actual punishment, with 
reference to ultimate results ; and the restrictions 
are divine and absolute. Who then are slain? 
Those who have taken up arms for Satan, who per- 
ish in their active opposition. The dawn of the 
millennium finds the world as the exodus left 
Egypt, subdued but not converted. 

Before deviating to consider the Satanic side of 
the question we had reached the period of the siege, 
still within but near the close of the sixth epoch. 
We start again, therefore, the consecutive or divine 
history and prosecute it to its close, recapitulating 
only in the incidents of the siege. 

At what time precisely the siege began we can- 
not say, save that it is not less than three and a 
half years before Armageddon ; for that is the time 
allotted to the two witnesses. 

As in all evil enterprises undertaken in the world, 
so in this : Satan and bad men busy themselves to se- 
cure certain ends, not knowing either limitations or 
results. God knew both, and marked their limita- 
tions by the measuring rod of John ii, I, 2, and the 
result is in these words : " The second woe is past, 
and behold the third woe cometh quickly." We 
have not much of the history of this siege, but we 
have its incipiency and the methods of its continu- 
ance in xvi, 13, 14, where the froglike spirits gather 
the nations to battle. We infer that the investiture 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 3 I I 



of the city is continued with presumption, but that 
its reduction is not urged with much vigor from the 
continued preaching of the two witnesses, although 
they defended themselves with fire, albeit Satan 
was exasperated because they were permitted to 
preach at all ; for he is induced to return from the 
14 four corners of the earth," where he had been re- 
cruiting and unifying his immense army to lead and 
direct an attack upon this hitherto insuperable ob- 
stacle in front. He seems to succeed, they are ap- 
parently slain, and their bodies lie exposed in the 
streets of that outer suburb given over to the 
Gentiles, while such telegraphy as Ave have never 
dreamed of flashes from pole to pole the intelli- 
gence that a great victory had been won by Satan 
over Christ. 

It would appear probable that Satan had with- 
drawn, possibly with or to a large part of his army, 
for the ascension of the two witnesses was likely to 
be succeeded almost immediately by the earthquake, 
which, opening three concentric fissures, involved 
and imprisoned all between its second and third or 
outer one, killing the limited number of seven thou- 
sand, and so convicting the remainder, called " a 
remnant," as to bring about their immediate con- 
version. There seems to be two reasonable infer- 
ences — one, that the number immediately around 
the city was comparatively small, and the other 
that Satan was not caught between the two earth- 
quake chasms. There is, no doubt, some continu- 
ance about the earthquake period at the beginning or 
in the continuance of which the seventh trumpet 
sounds, and foreseeing angels exclaim, " // is done! " 



312 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



And truly it is done in the unchangeable purposes 
of God. This is the turning point in the divine or- 
dering of this world's history with reference to its 
close. This is the intense moment to which the 
souls under the altar (vi, 10) have looked so wist- 
fully, crying, " How long, O Lord, holy and true, 
dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them 
that dwell on the earth ! " These are the souls slain 
in the persecutions which succeed the second com- 
ing of Christ. They are lonesome in heaven, since 
all other souls are gone, and again there is a resur- 
rection of the just, called (xx, 5) " the first resur- 
rection " — that is, the first apocalyptic resurrection. 

When this crisis is past the world will breathe 
freer. The rest of God will begin to shine forth 
through his power, and the millennial earth will 
faintly shadow forth the new heaven and the new 
earth with its indwelling righteousness. There 
will be a calm evening, and then a gathering of 
clouds about the setting sun, a blazing up of plan- 
ets that have never burned before, a going out in 
blackness of suns that have burned so long, a sud- 
den combustion of this earth's magazines, and then 
upon the broad ethereal floats the ship that brings 
the long-sought seventh day, and God, the Infinite, 
shall enter into his omnipotent repose. 

We have forestalled ourselves, and must go back 
to describe a battle, which is elsewhere styled " the 
marriage supper of the Lamb." The invitation to 
the fowls of the air to feed upon the slain is so evi- 
dently figurative as to give this cast of interpreta- 
tion to the whole, and yet what can we make of 
Armageddon but an actual battle waged between 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 313 



the legions of light and the powers of darkness to 
rivet the chains or break the manacles of sin, insuf- 
ferable alike to the world's Redeemer and the world's 
redeemed ? 

One result depending on the manifestation of 
Christ's long-hidden power might be thus expressed 
in the thanksgiving of the elders : " We give thee 
thanks, O Lord Jesus, God Almighty, because thou 
hast manifested thy great power and reigned over 
the angry nations in thine anger and destroyed the 
destroyers of the earth, and above all that in thine 
infinite wisdom the time has come for the resurrec- 
tion of the injured dead and the reward of their 
fidelity." It appears, therefore, that the subjuga- 
tion of Satan and his removal from out of the in- 
telligent universe is necessary to the enjoyment of 
the rewards to which meritorious Christians are en- 
titled somewhere within the scope of divine dispen- 
sation, and the elders rejoice even before the blow 
is struck that the time of reward has come. This, 
however, appertains rather to the millennium in 
which it is done than to Armageddon, by W'hich it 
is procured. 

We know of but three epochs in the probationary 
life of Satan apart from its beginning and its close, 
and so we know of but three epochs in the proba- 
tionary history of this world from its beginning to 
its close, and the essential relation between these 
successively is fruitful matter of speculation. Satan 
fell and the world fell. Satan was defeated at Cal- 
vary and the world redeemed. Satan was impris- 
oned at Armageddon and the world set free. 

Whatever, then, may have been the arms and 



3H 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



methods of its warfare, one thing is clear, it is one 
of the sharp, decisive conflicts between the Saviour 
of the world and its destroyer. One characteristic 
marks alike all these contests, namely, that the sov- 
ereign power of the one is manifest while the very 
aggressions of the other are founded upon the for- 
bearance shown toward him. God could have pre- 
vented the retaliatory act by which Satan involved 
the world in his own fall ; Christ could have sum- 
moned twelve legions of angels or made Caiaphas 
and Herod go backward and fall to the ground, but 
he permitted the powers of darkness to reign. The 
great culmination of sinful powers at Armageddon 
the Lord Jesus could have prevented, or the de- 
struction of Satan might have been made as com- 
plete then as later on. The reason for this can only 
be matter of conjecture to living men, but so much 
of this principle as is revealed to us in the descrip- 
tion of Armageddon we will now consider and close. 

The martial spirit of the age has been growing 
from year to year. It is not more than five years 
since the resurrected hosts of the Chaldeans swept 
over the face of the earth, slaying one third of its 
wicked inhabitants. Since then the world has seen 
nothing but civil war. The second beast had thrown 
off the mask and butchered the votaries of a false 
religion which he himself had imposed upon them. 
A stubborn reprobacy, a conscious blasphemy, 
marks the spirit of this wicked age as they stiffen 
their necks and harden their hearts and aggregate 
themselves against the impending ruin of the " third 
woe!' The celestial city is now impregnable to as- 
sault ; nevertheless they gravitate toward this com- 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



mon center and rendezvous, it ma}' be on the often 
bloodstained plains of Esdraelon. 

And on a higher plain there was a gathering of 
the clans that had a common Father, a single bap- 
tism, and the sprinkling of a common blood, that 
showed one cipher of the new name written on 
their hearts, one mark upon their foreheads, one 
sacramental purpose in their souls. They wear the 
sword of the Spirit and the helmet of salvation 
now, and bear the banner written of the Holy 
Ghost not long before, "Blessed, from henceforth^ 
are the dead that die in the Lord" 

When a door was opened in heaven for John it 
was a rare thing, but at this time the relations be- 
tween heaven and earth have become intimate. 
Stephen, being persecuted, saw heaven open and 
Jesus standing at the right hand of God, but his 
persecutors did not see him. But now it is only a 
crowning revelation when with reverberating thunder 
the shining portals are unfolded and heaven's vast 
drawbridge falls and links the earth. And over its 
sapphire pavement rides the imperial guard of God's 
Anointed One, the white-horse cavalry of heaven, 
to smite with immediate and unwonted " woe " the 
army of the aliens. The seventh trumpet has 
sounded the charge, and they sweep over the glisten- 
ing drawbridge, in the light of God's omniscience, 
to leave on Armageddon the shadow of the world's 
" third woe." 

The poetic imagination need not fear — the Holy 
Spirit of the Apocalypse did not— to present, in 
glowing grandeur of the storm that darkens the day 
or the lurid levin that reddens the night, this tre- 



316 THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



mendous conflict on the fair bosom of the earth 
which is to be the dower in the approaching " mar- 
riage of the Lamb." Over the heads of the advanc- 
ing host the cloud that curtained the retirement of 
Israel from the Red Sea and enveloped in fiery 
gloom the trembling sides of Sinai portends the 
wrath of God and hides the dread artillery of 
heaven. Has Milton written aught of the fallen 
angel that is not realized in the desperate courage 
of such an hour as this? But he who "went forth 
conquering " went forth " to conquer/' and this is 
that day of conquest when the horses' bridles dip 
in the ensanguined wine -press of the Son of God 
" by the space of a thousand and six hundred fur- 

1} y 
ongs. 

And now ride forth the milk-white squadrons of 
the skies ; these wore the white ribbon in the earth 
below; they "kept themselves unspotted from the 
world ;" they "washed their robes and made them 
white in the blood of the Lamb ; " and now they 
are clothed in fair linen, fine and clean. It is the 
labor of our lives to weave the robes in which we 
ride by Christ, "our righteousness." Of him it 
must be remembered that through all the centuries 
he had never assumed the glories of his higher 
state, but had been content, in humble grace and 
beneficent presence, to dwell for fifteen hundred 
years amid his followers, more and more constantly 
with living men, according to the development 
within his Church. But now the time has come to 
assume that glory fully which was faintly adum- 
brated when John and Peter were with him in 
" the holy mount." 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 317 



All concatenations culminate in the all-seeing, 
over-reaching providence of God ; witness the con- 
currence between the divine and human side of 
Chrises crucifixion. So now Satan's 44 grand army 
of the Jordan " is moving down, full of fatal pre- 
sumption, fiery zeal, proposing to take the celestial 
camp by storm (but God disposeth), really to meet 
the punishment decreed. All things are ready. 
It is the seismic period, and a thrill is felt along the 
earth. The cloud rends up as rent the temple's 
veil; and who is this that orders "Charge?" A 
warrior among men, of august port and martial 
bearing, armed cap-a-pie, is grand to look upon, but 
who is this? Is this He who, when we fell, went 
forth on his 44 white horse," and has "hisbow abode 
in strength?" And " conquering " is he now " to 
conquer ? " It is he. 

Resplendent in the glory he " had with the Father 
before the world was," 44 The Word," who 44 was 
made flesh and dwelt among us," by whom and for 
whom the worlds were made, comes now to claim his 
own. He must 44 subdue all things unto himself," 
must 44 reign till death and hell are cast into the 
lake." He 44 hath taken to him his great power." 
He shall 44 destroy them which destroy the earth," 
and " rule the nations with a rod of iron." 

He rides the conquering white horse with majestic 
mien. Upon his royal brow is crown on crown, for 
he is 44 King of kings," and on his crest is inter- 
twined that curious device of nails and thorns and 
cross and mystic name in bay and laurel and 
besprinkled blood. For 44 with his blood he pur- 
chased me." He is the 44 Lamb of God," 44 The Lion 



3i8 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



of the tribe of Judah," " The Faithful," and " The 
True." 

His flaming eyes look in consuming wrath on 
guilty man and Satan, man's eternal foe. In 
righteousness doth he judge, to whom "all judg- 
ment is committed," and of the will of God make 
war till " every knee shall bow and every tongue 
confess;" and all save God, the "All in all, 99 must 
be put under his feet, for he is " Lord of lords." 

Upon his crimson coat, and blazoned in the light 
that smote Paul blind, shines forth the primal 
name that marked "the Son" e'er worlds were 
made, " the Word of God," of whom the Father 
said, " Thou art mf Son ; this day have I begotten 
thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen 
for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the 
earth for thy possession ; " " The beginning of the 
creation of God;" "The first-born of every crea-" 
ture ; " " The express image of his [Father's] per- 
son ; " "The brightness of his glory; 19 " The heir 
of all things ; " " The author of all worlds," who took 
upon himself our likeness " and became obedient 
unto death," that he might bruise the serpent's 
head and " destroy him that had the power of 
death. " "This is he that was with our fathers in 
the wilderness." Abraham saw his day, and Moses 
met him in the burning bush and heard him declare 
his name, in the eternal self-consciousness of his 
divinity, " I am." 

This is one day of his wrath, and who shall be 
able to stand ? From out the serrated edges of the 
advancing cloud whose fulminations seem to burn 
in ice shoots the fierce lightning, and with it comes 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 319 



in rounded balls of hail the missiles of his wrath, 
Who can stand ? The stern blasphemer turns and 
raises his clinched hand to heaven, an ice ball of a 
talent's weight strikes him in the forehead and he is 
food for the invited fowls. All things are swept before 
the conqueror that day. He has u taken to him his 
great power," and the naked souls beneath the altar 
rise and stand upon the threshold to see their 
wrongs avenged that day. 'Tis done ! The trem- 
bling earth has shaken her guilty cities down ; her 
chasm mouths have swallowed up innumerable dead ; 
her sunken mountains are the sarcophagi of guilty 
grandeur; the retiring seas have buried unhallowed 
commerce in the main ; the storm of God's wrath has 
washed the stains of guilt from earth's fair face, and 
the sun of the millennium shines on more than her 
primal beauty, as the matron islovelier than the maid. 

We feel in duty bound at this point to call atten- 
tion to the fact that at the end of this struggle 
" the beast M (second beast) " was taken and with 
him the false prophet " (image of the beast). See xiii, 
15. " These both were cast alive into a lake of fire 
and brimstone. " And let the careful reader observe 
(xx, 10) that they preserved in perpetuity their 
personality. 

Such is our treatise on this much-talked-of epoch 
in apocalyptic history, from a martial point of 
view. We will give another aspect of the era so 
important to the Christian world, and so close. We 
assume that there needs no argument after compar- 
ing xix, 9, with xix, 17, to prove that this victory 
over Satan is, in its other aspect, " the marriage 
supper of the Lamb." 



320 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



The relation which these two events bear to one 
another, and in the latter aspect to some great 
change in the divine economy, becomes a matter of 
careful consideration, and without a question we 
state it propositionally to save the reader's time. 
Some new relation is contemplated, for otherwise 
the Lamb would now be married to his " wife." 
The turning point is evidently the occupation of 
the earth by Christ and his Church. For fifteen 
hundred years the relation of Christ and his follow- 
ers to earth or heaven has been left equally without 
revelation, and the relation of the Church to Christ 
is given in these words only, " ever with the Lord." 
But now the world is being made ready for their 
joint occupation, and it is fitting the celebration of 
this marriage should take place before they enter 
upon the serener joys of their new home. 

The first intimation of this we find in the song of 
the elders (xi, 17-19), where they thank Christ that 
he has " taken to him his great power and reigned ; 99 
" that it was the time to judge the dead," that is, 
to meet the demands of those souls who in vi, 10, 
cry, " How long, O Lord, dost thou not judge ? " etc. 
— a time for the distribution of rewards (which from 
the time of Adam had not taken place), and for 
the opening of the temple in heaven wherein was 
the ark of his testament (which we have not yet 
learned to understand, but we find it related to this 
period). 

In the fifteenth chapter we have the same things 
more comprehensively set forth, with another refer- 
ence to the condition of the " temple in heaven," 
which seems to be a gauge to the progressive ful- 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



fillrnent of the plan. Passing over chapters xvi, 
xvii, and xviii, which are themselves but an ex- 
tended history of the preparatory process, we come 
to the great song of " much people in heaven" 
(reasonably the righteous dead of the apocalyptic 
period) (xix, 1-9), proclaiming the groundwork of 
their joy, in God's righteous judgment, in the 
more absolute reign of Christ in that judgment 
(which is comprehensive of Armageddon), and in 
the preparation for the " marriage of the Lamb " 
and the grand concomitant privilege of the Church, 
now to array herself in the clean white linen of her 
own righteousness. 

Thus ends the description of the wedding which 
precedes the account of the battle — nothing rare in 
Revelation — at the end of which John, overpowered 
with the sight, would fain have worshiped the angel. 
But the angel forbade him, declaring, " I am thy 
fellow-servant, and of thy brethren that have the 
testimony of Jesus. " He was but another servant, 
of an earlier date in the household of God, who had 
long since realized that " it was better to depart and 
be with Christ," who was in condition to enjoy the 
direct " testimony of Jesus," which makes the reve- 
lation of future events but as the relation of what 
our friend has told us. 

The next mention we have of the condition of 
the Church is in xx, 4: "I saw thrones, and they 
sat upon them, . . . and I saw the souls of them that 
were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, . . . and they 
lived [in their bodies] and reigned with Christ a 
thousand years." Here is location — on the earth 
— and condition of resurrection attributed to those 
21 



322 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR 



who shortly before this time said (vi, 10), " How 
long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge 
and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the 
earth?" And these live in whatever may be the 
nature of Christ's life, and reign in whatever may 
be the nature of his government, with him " a thou- 
sand years." Does not this alone fulfill the promise 
of John xiv, 2, 3, " I go to prepare a place for you. 
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come 
again, and receive you unto myself ; that where I am, 
there ye maybe also?" Has there been anyplace 
prepared lieretofore in heaven that meets all the con- 
ditions of this promise ? 

This is not "the end!" These thrones, on which 
the saints sit down with Christ, are no part of "the 
new heaven and the new earth" for therein " dwell- 
eth righteousness " — only righteousness, and no seats 
of judicial government are needed there. But, nev- 
ertheless, this is a tremendous culmination. The 
ensanguined close, on the one hand, of a long, dark 
period, on the other, the dawning over the earth of 
a long, bright day such as she has never seen since 
the shadow of sin first fell on her fair face. " The 
marriage of the Lamb " has come, and Christ and 
his bride take possession of the home they will 
never leave again. 'Tis true, the lightnings and 
darkness of the " little season," with the fury of the 
summer's thunder storm, must still come upon the 
earth, but " the Lamb's wife " hath made herself 
ready; the Church of Jesus Christ has come back 
home to stay ; so it is appropriate that after the 
customs of ancient Judea the long espousals end 
now in the wedding celebration. The world is the 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 323 



dower of the bride — it was purchased for her — the 
millennium her honeymoon, and the earth, already 
partially remodeled, her eternal home. 

As we are now at the transition period the things 
that are being done involve in a more than usual 
degree the interests of the future. Napoleon, when 
overcome by the power of Great Britain at Water- 
loo, was placed on lonely seagirt Helena for the 
peace of Europe ; when the battle of Armageddon 
ends in the rout and death and capture of those 
that hate God, Satan does not seem to have been 
taken at the head of his army; nevertheless the 
sequel with regard to him is told. A commis- 
sioned angel, having the key of the " bottomless 
pit/' lays hold upon Satan, and with the great 
chain of God's immutable purposes binds him " a 
thousand years." And the pit is again unlocked 
and he is cast in and " shut up asa sailor would 
say, " the hatches are battened down." And a seal 
is set upon him. Yes, he and Caiaphas set a seal 
upon the Saviour's tomb, lest, said they, "his disci- 
ples come by night and steal [that deceiver] away." 
But hear what God says : " Set a seal upon him, 
that he deceive the nations no more till the thou- 
sand years be fulfilled." This is not for the peace 
of Europe for the fourth of a century, but for the 
peace of the world for "a thousand years." 

God in his sovereignty does not stop here to de- 
fend the punitive justice of what he does, but kindly 
reveals to us his purpose in so doing, " that he 
should deceive the nations no* more." In the be- 
ginning of our race one rode forth from Satan on a 
" red horse, " and his commission was " to take peace 



3^4 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



from the earth ; " but now " the red horse/* the " black 
horse/' and the " pale horse'* will all find refuge, 
with all evil things, in hell, whose vaults are locked 
" a thousand years." 

Armageddon presents the second example out of 
three where the world at large grows so wicked as 
to provoke its own destruction. There is progress- 
iveness even here. The first destruction of men 
found them passive but corrupt, and left the globe 
a fit theater for man's struggle after supremacy — 
over its fierce creatures, fallen like himself ; over its 
heat and its cold, its miasm or its sterility ; over 
its ocean depths or cloud-capped heights, its min- 
eral wealth or its metallic power. The second is 
when those conquests have reached their greatest 
height. How far man's intelligence may be made 
instrumental in bringing about the recovery of the 
earth from the results of the fall who can tell? Let 
the speculative man think along this line. Every 
man that plants a tree where there was no tree be- 
fore, that sinks a well-shaft where there was no 
water before, manifestly contributes so much toward 
that change which shall make " the [erst] desert 
blossom as the rose." It is a reasonable conclusion 
that human intelligence, virtue, power, w r isdom, and 
wickedness will have reached their acme when the 
hair-suspended sword falls at Armageddon. 

The third is when the one thousand years of the 
world's second paradise shall have passed, when the 
result shall have been demonstrated and " the end 
of the days" attained, for " at the time appointed 
the end shall be;" the result demonstrated is that 
a thousand years of paradisaical invitation has not 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 325 

induced the world to come to Christ ; the turning 
point is when all the unconverted men of the world 
as a unit have taken up arms against God. The 
immediate destruction of the wicked shall then 
mark the end of the sixth and the beginning of the 
seventh or sabbatic period. So, returning to our 
text, the end of apocalyptic chastisement and the 
beginning of millennial paradise shall be marked by 
the battle of Armageddon, the " marriage supper of 
the Lamb." 



326 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



PICTURE X. 

(Chapters xviii and xix.) 

PROBABLY the greatest problem, after all, pre- 
sented to the student of the Apocalypse is the 
metropolis of sin. That a great city is presented 
to John in his visions of the future is evident, and 
these are its characteristics : It was the seat (capi- 
tal) of the beast (xvi, 10) ; it was a great city (xvi, 19, 
also xviii) at large, and, as large cities have ever 
been, it was the sink and center of aggregated 
wickedness, the wickedness of the kingdom of the 
beast, concentrative of iniquity, radiative of sin, 
an embodiment of infidelity and false religion per- 
sonified as " she," the Church (see xvii, 18), and in- 
scribed as a title on the forehead of the great whore 
(xvii, 5). 

That this is to be a commercial city seems to 
be evident, and we cannot shake off the idea that it 
is to be literally maritime. It is this very fact that 
makes the description inapplicable to Rome or Je- 
rusalem as cities ; and the wealth, luxury, licen- 
tiousness, and diversified criminality so vividly de- 
scribed by successive angels reminds us so forcibly 
of all that we have ever known or seen or read in 
history or story of seaport towns and great commer- 
cial centers. 

There are several points in the'declaration of her 
destruction, and the directions given, of which we 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



327 



cannot forbear to speak here, though they belong 
very properly to the essay on Armageddon. We 
begin with that part of the declaration of the second 
angel (or voice, possibly of the Holy Ghost) found 
in verse 10. The "one day " of verse 8 is here re- 
duced to " one hour/' the first a year, the second a 
month — the preparations for her reduction being 
made within a year, the work of her destruction 
being accomplished in a month. The sudden and 
summary nature of this retribution is worthy of 
consideration. 

The last declaration of the " voice from heaven " 
is to the effect that God had, in the destruction of 
Babylon, avenged the holy apostles and prophets. 
We appreciate the doubts and questions that will 
arise in the minds of thoughtful readers, but how 
are we to resolve those doubts ? Not more than 
two of the apostles were slain in any one city ; of 
the prophets, literally, very few ever lost their lives 
outside of Judea. We can see no better interpre- 
tation than this, that upon some great representa- 
tive city in that dispensation fell an aggregated 
malediction, as upon Jerusalem in the beginning of 
this. See Matt, xxiii, 25. 

Linked with this is the passage, " Come out of 
her, my people " (verse 4), the first words uttered 
by this 11 voice." The exact parallel between this 
escape of God's people and their escape from Jeru- 
salem will arouse anxious thought in the reader's 
mind, but of course the probabilities are all on the 
side of the literal again, for if this were a metropolis 
it is natural that many Christians should be living 
there, and that in the intimate relations then exist- 



328 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



ing between heaven and earth they should be duly 
warned to make their escape. On this eighteenth 
chapter we have not much to say in this connection, 
because it is part of the campaign of Armageddon, 
giving particulars as to the condition of Babylon 
and her destruction at that time, one or two years 
before the millennium. Its connection with the 
campaign we will discuss in the essay on Arma- 
geddon. 

The " remembrance of her iniquities " reminds 
us of the fact that there is a principle of justice 
underlying revenge and a similarity to revenge in 
even-handed justice, and the only reason why man 
is not permitted personally to administer it is be- 
cause his fallen nature incapacitates him to do so. 
But when God says, " Render unto her double " the 
administrative part is his, and the men who execute 
the plan are as free from responsibility as the sheriff 
at an execution. 

The declaration that her plagues, death, mourn- 
ing, and famine will come upon her in one day will 
mislead you if you do not bear in mind that this 
day is either one year or two years, and that it ter- 
minates in some closer investiture, storming, or 
what not, that occupy " one hour," that is, thirty 
days (verse 19, last clause). 

The inventory of what this great commercial city 
traded in is subject to an unchangeable principle 
with the Holy Spirit of inspiration, namely, that all 
communications to prophets are made through such 
knowledge of natural things as they possess, and by 
them correspondingly conveyed to others. To make 
ourselves understood, if John had been directed by 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 329 



the all-knowing Spirit of God to say that Babylon 
dealt in fine cutlery, improved firearms, or general 
railway supplies, it would have wrought absurdity 
of which the infinite wisdom could not have been 
guilty, being applicable, not to the time in which it 
was written or the time in which it shall be fulfilled, 
but only in our time. All prophecy, in the infinite 
wisdom of God, is conveyed in language intelligi- 
ble to all generations, and the subject-matter is not 
susceptible of any expansion in itself, but the en- 
larged appreciations of men make it appear so. 

We are told that the prophets referred to in 
verse 20 and other parallel passages are exclusively 
those of the New Testament, which, most likely, is 
true, but the concluding one, verse 24, reminds us 
forcibly of words spoken by Jesus : " That upon 
you may come all the righteous blood shed upon 
the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto 
the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye 
slew between the temple and the altar." 

Entering upon the nineteenth chapter we note 
that it opens with one of a series of praise services 
in heaven. Seven times do these remarkable pic- 
tures within pictures present themselves in the de- 
velopment of this wonderful revelation wherein 
different portions of the heavenly host unite in 
tributary worship. Having reached the last but 
one in the series we will take this opportunity to 
subjoin a table, chronologically arranged, and a few 
comments in a separable essay. 

And now to return to the nineteenth chapter. 
The eighth verse of this full and remarkable chap- 
ter requires particular attention as to its theology, 



330 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



especially on the part of our Calvinistic brethren. 
Whatever may be said of works anterior to salva- 
tion, and of their relation thereto, one thing is clear, 
in the light of this text, after salvation shall have 
been achieved, when they shall have " washed their 
robes and made them white in the blood of the 
Lamb," then the " righteousness of the saints " shall 
constitute the fine linen, " clean and white," in 
which the Church shall array herself, by the divine 
permission, for nuptials with her Lord. 

Between the acts the conversation of John with the 
angel occurred. Now heaven opens again for pro- 
cession of a pageant more magnificent than we have 
yet seen. He of the white horse, of whose riding forth 
we read in the fourth chapter, having spent the ages 
in " conquering," now comes forth to " conquer." 

In the early ages of the world He had walked with 
men ; his steed awaited him beyond the Euphrates 
when he walked in Eden in the cool of the day ; 
Cain's passion-blinded eyes saw him not when that 
horse's noiseless hoofs paused by the side of fallen 
Abel, and that gentle spirit leaped upon the with- 
ers of the white horse, the first to pillow his head 
upon a Saviour's breast, the first transplanted one 
to found a colony in heaven. The bridle rein of 
that white horse hung on the Saviour's arm as 
Enoch walked with him (God), and the steed neighed 
proudly when at last Enoch mounted him " and 
was not, for God took him." That white horse 
pawed the cloud, and the lightnings of his " nees- 
ings ". fell to earth as the diluvian tidal wave swept 
round and round the globe, and naught survived of 
all that had failed to follow him. 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 33 1 



He of the white horse rode over into Mesopota- 
mia twice after that and urged a " friend, " named 
Abram, to emigrate, and took him to the bank of 
the great historic river ; and there he stayed a while 
to work, and think, and graze his flocks, and there 
his father died ; and then he followed the rider to 
the land of his countless progeny and the fulfillment 
of his predicted destiny. He left the white horse 
and walked across the plain of Mamre to visit 
Abraham, but rode down that evening after his at- 
tendant angels, and shrieking Sodomites saw the 
white horse amid the judgment fires that night, and 
when his hoofs paced sadly up the Jordan's course 
the following morn it had been appointed that noble 
river, till the Millennium dawn, to flow into the 
Dead Sea depths of sin's dark sepulcher. The white 
horse stood across the Jabbok that memorable night 
and wondered why his " Master " strove with any 
mortal man, but patiently awaited till he bore the 
news that " Israel " had prevailed with God. 

The story cannot all be told. There came a time 
when Logos was the " Son of man," when weak and 
weary, dismounted, hungry, and forlorn, he met in 
single combat the arch fiend mounted on the black 
horse of famine and wielded a " sword " the Spirit 
gave him, " the word of God ; ' ' and in that battle of 
the wilderness there was exemplary overcoming ; 
and to " him that overcometh " there was furnished 
" hidden manna " from the Commissariat on high. 
There came a time when he bared his human soul 
to the lightnings of his Father's wrath ; and can we 
wonder if the white horse reared madly when he 
heard his Master's piercing cry, " My God, my 



332 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



God! why hast thou forsaken me?" But it was 
not long until, as the first breath of coming day- 
swept over Gethsemane, he stood by Joseph's tomb, 
approaching his nostrils close to Roman guards, 
lying as dead men on the graveled walk. Lightly 
his Master mounted him in that gray dawn — the 
morning of the world's emancipation — and the keys 
of the grave were in his girdle, and his lariat 
dragged henceforward to the " lake of fire," " the 
body of this death." 

The white horse learned his lesson of the resur- 
rection well ; when " the devil disputed (with Michael 
the archangel) about the body of Moses " he said, 
" Ha, ha ! " and bore that body, Mazeppa-like, to 
his own home. He was harnessed, while the flames 
played over his white sides, to that chariot of fire 
that bore Elijah over the resurrection line to glory. 
The Spirit led him to Joseph's sepulcher, and his 
instincts lead him wherever lie the sainted ones 
" which sleep in Jesus." 

But now that " time " has past, and " times" 
have past, and the "dividing of time" has past, 
and the impatient souls under the altar have cried, 
" How long, O Lord, how long?" and the cup of 
man's iniquity is full. Up rises the portcullis of 
heaven's battlements, and in righteousness rides 
forth the " faithful " and the " true ; " his eyes flame 
with love to man and hate to sin ; his head bears 
the crown that he has won and the crowns that he 
will give. Wellington was the hero of Waterloo, 
and Washington of Valley Forge ; but who shall 
name this Man ? Of all in heaven he only . wears the 
crimson vest of Calvary ; and on the crest of his 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 333 



glory, now resumed, the changeless " Logos " gleams 
in imperishable Greek, and the armies hitherto in 
heaven follow him on horses white like his. Their 
linen robes were woven fine by grace, white in purity, 
clean in obedience, and as they ride we count them, 
fifty thousand, one hundred thousand, one hundred 
and forty-four thousand ; this is the imperial guard 
that leads the countless hosts of heaven. 

Sharp is the destroying sword of his omnipotent 
word, fierce the united wrath of the Father and the 
Son, unimpeachable the title on his banner now, 
" King of kings, and Lord of lords/' 

We leave the rest of this chapter to be woven 
into the warp of Armageddon. 



334 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



Abstract Treatise. 

PROPHETIC PRAISE. 

THESE services of praise divided between heaven 
and earth, embracing, first and last, all that is good in 
the universe of God — pregnant with theology, and 
unfolding, from epoch to epoch, the revelation of the 
divine purposes as in progressive ages they culmi- 
nate in this era and in that. These mirrors in the 
pictures of the future ages deserve, we think, more 
than passing mention. 

We therefore renew the chronological table for 
the convenience of the reader, desiring to make 
these essays as independent of the text as possible, 
and seek by particular comment upon each song 
to commend its teachings to the reader. A. P. 
stands for Apocalyptic Period. 



YEAR. 

First example, 4, 8-1 1 1 A. P. 

Second example, 5, 8-14 2 A. P. 

Third example, 7, 9-12 1497 A. P. 

Fourth example, II, 15-18 149S A. P. 

Fifth example, 14, i-S 1498 A. P. 

Sixth example, 15, 2-4 1498 A. P. 

Seventh example, 19, 1-8 1500 A. P. 



COMMENT ON FIRST EXAMPLE (iv, 8-1 i). 

This is praise on general principles. It is offered, 
you observe, only by the intelligences immediately 
around the throne. But if we fail to appreciate 
"Him that sat on the throne, who liveth forever and 
ever " as the second person in the adorable Trinity, 
we shall fail to catch the exquisite delicacy of its 
symbolic teachings, for it would not be said of him 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 335 



( ; ' which was, and is, and is to come") if it were 
not so. Therefore is it that the casting of the eld- 
ers' crowns before him has such beautiful significance, 
for the prophets that went before him prophesied 
of him, and the apostles that came after him pro- 
claimed his Gospel. The chief purpose of the whole 
symbolical representation is that the glory of the 
world's salvation may center upon him : and the 
glory of the worlds salvation is the theme of the A poc- 
alypse. 

COMMENT ON SECOND EXAMPLE (v, 8-I4). 

Since the previous act of adoration the Lamb 
has been introduced into the heavenly tableau, 
and now the intelligences and representatives im- 
mediately around the throne prostrate themselves 
before the Lamb and offer him as incense " the 
prayers of the saints," who are now introduced as 
singing their new song, " Thou art worthy/' etc. 
The latter ground of congratulation, " we shall reign 
on the earth" is prospectively introduced, for as yet 
its fulfillment is in the far future. And now the 
angels who circle around the throne and its immedi- 
ate attachments, being millions in number, take up 
the glad refrain and offer their tribute to the Lamb 
who is God in Christ and Christ in one revelation 
of himself, much stress being constantly laid on the 
fact that it was an efficacious revelation of himself 
as the " Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the 
world." And, lastly, the secondary creatures of 
earth, air, and sea, indorse what Paul has said of 
them (Rom. viii, 19), " For the earnest expectation 
of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the 



336 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



sons of God" and ascribe " blessings and honor, 
power and glory to him that sitteth upon the throne, 
and unto the Lamb forever and ever." Let the 
reader still bear in mind that " him that sitteth 
upon the throne" is identical with "the Lamb," 
worshiped equally as He who created all things for 
/lis pleasure and He who redeemed us to God by his 
blood. 

Here we would pause and call the reader's atten- 
tion to the prophetic nature of this praise. In the 
first place, as to its literal chronology, it is eighteen 
hundred years since this revelation was made, and 
it still may be said, u The whole creation groaneth and 
travaileth in pain together until now" And not only 
so, but in apocalyptic chronology the Lamb is rep- 
resented as only having taken the book into his 
hand, and not having, as yet, opened it. So in verse 
10, while the redeemed declare themselves " kings 
and priests," or, if you prefer it, "a kingdom of 
priests," there could be no realization of such a con- 
dition of things short of the millennium. It had not 
been reached in the apocalyptic unfoldings, and was 
literally removed from them, as we suppose, not less 
than four thousand years then, not less than two 
thousand now. 

COMMENT OX THIRD EXAMPLE (vii, 9-12). 

The seventh chapter opens with these words: 
" And after those things I saw ; " but that does not 
put the things which he then saw after the date of 
what he had already seen, for he had seen a picture 
of the end. It is therefore manifest that the chro- 
nology goes back, but to what point? 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



337 



It is fair to assume that the Jewish nation has 
never been — will never be — in a position to furnish 
one hundred and forty-four thousand guileless 
Christians till after the national conversion, which 
cannot, in the nature of things, long, if at all, pre- 
cede the millennium. Then, moreover, confirma- 
tion is found in the fourteenth chapter, where the 
same men are referred to as Christ's newly elected 
bodyguard, about the time of the destruction of 
Babylon. The point of time, then, is just upon the 
eve of the millennial reign, and the fact first claim- 
ing our attention is the universality of Christian 
sympathy, the essential unselfishness of Christian 
joy. 

The men who w r ere redeemed, chosen out of a 
nationality, had their own reasons for praising, and 
in due time they do so. The nation honored by the 
selection from her ranks had reason to rejoice ; other 
Scriptures teach us that she will. But this is a pic- 
ture of the spontaneous, tumultuous pouring forth 
of joy, in song, by the great product of the furnace 
of affliction in all ages and of all lands. 

" The Lord our God is one God," according to 
the stern monotheism of the Jew of ancient or of 
modern times, is not the burden of this song. Sal- 
vation is attributed to that personality of God mani- 
fested in the Lamb that redeemed them. He is in 
a certain distinguishing sense " our God" to them, 
and in these revelations is ever seen " upon the 
throne of his glory," and the "Lamb" — the mani- 
festation of his mediatorial relation — stands ever 
before him that the two relations of Maker and Re- 
deemer may be praised at once. 
22 



338 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



This picture evidently belongs to that group of 
scenes and songs which swing upon the pivot of 
Armageddon, and are introductory to the millen- 
nium. All is still future ; all the rejoicings are an- 
ticipative. Yet they build their prophecy, their 
ecstasy, their gratitude alike on the immutability 
of God. 

But in those immutable purposes of God the time 
is at hand for God the Father to give to God the 
Son " the heathen for his inheritance and the utter- 
most parts of the earth for his possession," and "the 
redeemed of the Lord say so." There is a new sig- 
nificance now about living with as well as reigning 
with Christ. The thousand years of keen but grand 
employ governing the world against sin in conjunc- 
tion with Christ — who would not shout ! 

Here comes, in the divine plan, the distribution 
of rewards. Heaven cannot be construed into a 
reward, neither can one man have more of it than 
another. The millennial work is that in which men 
are to take their stand according to their merit. 
Well may the elders say (xi, J 8), The time is come 
that thou sJwuldest give reward unto thy servants the 
prophets, and to the saints, and to them that fear thy 
name, small or great. 

The first step is to select from the Jews (probably 
living Jews, they having returned to Jerusalem) one 
hundred and forty-four thousand — which you can 
receive as a definite or representative number, we 
have no means of determining that — who, in con- 
sideration of their purity and devotion, were called 
to a high and an unalterable estate, for they are 
sealed. 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 339 



Another contemporary feature in the picture, 
whether in the fact or not, is the introduction, be- 
fore the throne of God, of an innumerable throng of 
all ages who had come out of great tribulations in 
white robes of their own practical righteousness, 
and with the bestowment of victorious palms. The 
angel said, " These are they which came out of 
great tribulation, and have washed their robes and 
made them white in the blood of the Lamb," 
" therefore are they before the throne of God," 
[therefore] " serve him day and night in [the serv- 
ices of] his temple,'' the temple being emblematic 
of the relation between heaven and earth in this 
period, [therefore] " He that sitteth on the throne 
shall dwell among them." " They shall hunger no 
more, neither thirst any more ; neither shall the sun 
light on them, nor any heat ; for the Lamb, which is 
in the midst of the throne, shall feed them, and shall 
lead them unto living fountains of waters ; and God 
shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." 

Returning to the praise ; the praise of the exalted 
Jews and all interested in them is deferred, but the 
innumerable multitude of all kindreds break forth 
" and cry with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to 
our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto 
the Lamb." This is obscure as to our grammar, 
but the meaning is plain enough. They ascribe the 
glory of their salvation to God and to the Lamb ; 
and the angels, who had gathered round the throne 
desiring u to look into" these things, and who had 
never fully understood salvation until now, echoed 
and re-echoed with extended outburst, "Amen! 
Blessings, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgivings 



34° 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



and honor, and power, and might, be unto our God 
forever and ever. Amen ! " • 

We invite your attention to the following ques- 
tion : Were these people of all nations gathered out 
of the world at the second coming of Christ or at 
the close of the fifteen hundred years of plagues 
and sufferings between that time and the millen- 
nium, and therefore in the first apocalyptic resur- 
rection ? 

COMMENT ON FOURTH EXAMPLE (xi, 1 5— 18). 

The signal for this triumphant outburst in heaven 
is the sounding of the seventh and last trumpet. 
The reader will readily recall the declaration of the 
" mighty angel " (x, 7), u But in the days of the voice 
of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the 
mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared 
to his servants the prophets." This gives us the key. 
Paul says (1 Cor. xv, 24), " Then cometh the end," 
therefore, whatever this " end " is, it has been at- 
tained, that is, practically ; the shout is always 
raised in heaven when the divine purpose is an- 
nounced ; they celebrate the coming event while 
they compliment the infallibility. 

" The kingdoms of this world are become the 
kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ ; and he 
shall reign forever and ever." The rendering is 
our own ; but no scholar will object to it now we 
have secured the clew. The finishing of the mys- 
tery — the end — is the changing of all that has been 
heretofore subject to sin and to Satan, to nature 
and to man, into that perfect and universal king- 
dom of the Lord Jesus Christ which was the ulti- 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



341 



mate end of the original plan. We do not mean 
that there is not an eternity beyond this end, but 
we do mean that this melancholy episode of sin and 
probation which has broken into creative eternity 
comes then to its happy termination, to its final 
close. 

Yes, to its final close. Yet, as the seventh trum- 
pet covers all the period from Armageddon to the 
judgment, there is a sad break in the final destruc- 
tion of the impenitent. But the assumption of this 
triumphant song is that the gathering together of the 
nations which are in the four quarters of t lie earth, 
when they go upon the breadth of the earth and com- 
pass the camp of the saints, is but a rebellion which 
disturbs, but in nowise dispossesses, the divine King 
who still reigns upon the earth. 

The elders were men, not angels. Through their 
representative relations to earth and nearness to 
God they are ever in a condition to know more of 
these things than the angels who desire to look into 
them. And now, therefore, in their magnificent re- 
lations to the whole subject of apocalyptic revelation 
they may w r ell say, "We give thee thanks, O Lord 
God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come, 
because thou hast taken [art taking\ to thee thy great 
power, and hast reigned" (hast begun thine unending 
reign). 

We would stop here, but cannot. They proceed, 
in their song, to say, " The nations were angry," but 
in vain, " and the time of thy wrath has come," 
and not in vain, and the time of the — apocalyptic — 
dead has come, that "thou shouldest avenge them," 
and the time for distributing rewards to the greatest 



342 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



of the prophets, to the " least of these thy brethren," 
and " for the destruction of those " — whether bad 
angels or bad men — " who have so largely destroyed 
the earth." 

And then the song glides into historic prediction 
of earth-opened " ark of the testament," and the 
"lightnings," and the " great hail " of the fast-ap- 
proaching " Armageddon." 

COMMENT ON FIFTH EXAMPLE (xiv, I-5). 

The first question is, Who were these singers 
whose song was peculiar to themselves? Let us 
build the inferential argument as concisely as pos- 
sible. 

The place was Mount Zion, the place (we will 
learn to understand some day) where God's temple 
was, where God dwelt in the midst of his ancient 
people. Volumes have been written on the Jewish 
appreciation of God's dwelling place with them, and 
still we cannot understand it, but there it was. 

The Lamb stood there appreciated at last as " the 
Lamb of God" and " tlie Lion of the tribe of Judali^ 
There stood with him " one hundred and forty-four 
thousand, his Father's name written in their fore- 
heads." Now let us turn to vii, 1-4, "And after 
these things I saw four angels standing on the four 
corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the 
earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, 
nor on the sea, nor on any tree." 

" And I saw another angel ascending from the 
east, having the seal of the living God ; and he 
cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom 
it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, saying, 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 343 



Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, 
till we have sealed the servants of our God in their 
foreheads." 

" And I heard the number of them which were 
sealed : and there were sealed a hundred and forty 
and four thousand of all the tribes of the children 
of Israel." 

Can anyone doubt that these are the same men? 
This is after the resurrection of the righteous at the 
coming of our Lord and before the millennium, 
and therefore these w r ere selected from among liv- 
ing men. Not necessarily at one time (the disciples 
were not), and their definite or indefinite number, 
their actual or complementary proportion, does not 
demand it. 

They were redeemed (this is ultimate salvation 
with its spiritual body) from among men (living 
men), their still remaining contemporaries. They 
were called to a peculiar relation, to "follow the 
Lamb whithersoever he goeth" to be his bodyguard. 

Of men resurrected at the coming of the Lord it 
is declared they shall " ever be with the Lord ; " but 
of these it is affirmed that they were redeemed from 
among men, making their selection from among 
good men the reward of their peculiar holiness, for 
they were guiltless and " without fault before the 
throne of the Lord." "They were the first fruits 
unto God " (differing from Abraham, Isaac, Moses, 
David) " and the Lamb," differing from John, 
Nathanael, Peter, Paul, in that they w r ere first fruits 
to both God and the Lamb, and that after the Jews 
had learned to say, " Blessed is he that cometh in the 
name of the Lord." And they differed from all that 



344 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



had gone before them in that they were a body of 
translated men ; hence theirs was a new song and 
none but they could sing it, but the refrain came from 
heaven as the concert of the cataract with a basso 
like deep thunder, and anon the sweet melody " of 
harpers harping with their harps." These paeans of 
praise were in honor of the royal Commander of 
the white horse cavalry preparing now for the 
august charge of Armageddon, and using for the 
occasion the appropriate anthem of the first corps, 
and the sonorous refrain was the voice of the angel 
echoing through the firmament, " Fear God and give 
glory to him ; for the Jwnr of his judgment is co7ne" 

COMMENT ON SIXTH EXAMPLE (xv, 2-4). 

The ground of this congratulation is revelation in 
result^ and the subject of it is success. It is a 
chaste, meek, and deeply grateful song of thanks- 
giving. It is one uniform feature of these tributary 
occasions that in point of time, or presentation, they 
always anticipate ; after the account of the thanks- 
giving you may always look for the fact. The 
characteristics of these redeemed men who stood 
upon the amber sea were these : they had been liv- 
ing men during some part of the past twelve or 
fifteen hundred years, struggling with the oppres- 
sion of the "beast" and the "image" and the 
temptations of his "mark" and the number of his 
name" They were, in other words, the fruit of 
that first apocalyptic resurrection, mentioned in the 
twentieth chapter, fifth verse, who "were beheaded 
for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God," 
and " lived and reigned with Christ a thousand 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 345 



years." The significance of that song is this: 
Through all their lives they have seen the provi- 
dence of God working up into new life, his relations 
with his ancient people, and now the union of 
Moses and the Lamb in the approaching millen- 
nium is about to be fulfilled, and of that feature 
they sing, ''Great and marvelous are thy works, 
Lord God Almighty ; just and true are thy ways, 
thou king of saints. Who shall not fear thee, O 
Lord, and glorify thy name?" Of the gathering 
of the nations to him and the rule of " the rod of 
iron " they say, " For all nations shall come and 
worship before thee ; for thy judgments are made 
manifest." 

COMMENT ON SEVENTH EXAMPLE (xix, 1-8). 

There is no denying that Armageddon is " the 
marriage stepper of the Lamb" and therefore that 
the union, not metaphysical only but true, though 
mystical, between Christ and his Church is co- 
eventual with the millennium. And this period is 
not as the honeymoon of men is, but as it ought 
to be, a brief preparation for the never-ending joys 
of connubial relation. 

We have elsewhere spoken of the judgments of 
God as they appear to eyes unjaundiced by preju- 
dice and unconstrained by the bias of depravity. 
In this accepted service of praise there is an indorse- 
ment of the u vengeance of eternal fire," and, with 
curious continuity of thought, linked on to the nar- 
rative ; for while not more than a year seems to 
have elapsed since the destruction of Babylon, yet 
it is said " her smoke rose up forever and ever." 



346 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



There is always a new agency or quality introduced 
into each succeeding tribute of praise ; in this case a 
voice proceeding from the throne — surely that of the 
Holy Ghost, in his inciting agency — exhorts to more 
extended worship, and the response is as " the [roar] 
of many waters," and " the voice of mighty thunder- 
ings 99 rejoicing in a fact, which is the essence of con- 
gratulation — " The Lord God omnipotent reigneth ! " 

The burden of the song which they improvise 
gives us the status of the singers and the key to the 
occasion ; as also some theology, for the benefit of 
those who are willing to receive it directly from 
heaven. It runs as follows : " Let us be glad and 
rejoice, and give honor to him ; for the marriage of 
the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself 
ready. And to her was granted that she should be 
arrayed in fine linen, clean and white ; for the fine 
linen is the righteousness of the saints." 

The Antinomian proclivities of some branches of 
the Christian Church are here denied and rebuked as 
clearly as God can put it by the word of inspiration. 
And the yearning of the humble Christian's heart 
to weave into the tapestry of daily life some snow- 
white, blood-washed threads to grace eternity meets 
the divine response, the gracious consideration of 
the pitying Father and the loving Christ. Yea, it 
was ever the purpose of God from the creation to 
the fall, from Adam to Moses, from Moses to Christ, 
from Christ to judgment, that while all that was 
sinister should be consumed as "filthy rags," all 
that was sacred should be personal and inalienable, 
" for the fine linen is the righteousness of the saints." 
" Let God be true and every man a liar," 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



547 



PICTL'P.E XI. 

(Chapter xx.) 

IT seems very evident that we, as Gentiles, mag- 
nify the millennium out of due proportion, as we 
have also put it out of due place. Could it be pos- 
sible for the Jew, in his present estate, to appre- 
ciate a condition of conversion and restoration, he 
indeed might extol this period in such language as 
the ancient prophets used. But to the Gentile it is 
not that end and consummation which popular 
opinion makes it, and to the genuine Christian phi- 
losopher it is but one of those stages through which 
he proceeds from glory to glory. 

Six consecutive verses only out of twenty-two 
chapters which constitute this book are devoted to 
the outlining facts of this period. These we briefly 
consider. Satan, for reasons which are not given 
here, is bound, and ''shut up" to the end that he, 
who "was a liar from the beginning," "should de- 
ceive the nations no more," which sheds some light 
on the character of this personal enemy of God and 
man by declaring that he shall " deceive the nations 
no more " till the thousand years be fulfilled, M and 
after that he must be loosed a little season" — for 
what' Evidently to deceive the nations a^ain. 
Then he is constitutionally and always a deceiver, 
as much so when he is shut up as when he is turned 
loose. 



34§ 



THE THIRD PERIOD : 



The incarceration of Satan is. however, not the 
ground of the popular opinion referred to. Too 
much appreciation of his relation to man would be 
required; too much appreciation of argument 
founded on inference to produce such widespread 
and universally admitted conception of the millen- 
nium. No ! The poetry of the prophet about the 
wolf lying down with the lamb, the prevalence of 
peace, the blooming of the desert, has wrought up 
this general idea in the Gentile mind, operating 
rather upon his hopes and sentiments than upon 
his principles : whereas, in the Jewish mind, it ap- 
peals neither to hope nor sentiment, nor yet to 
principle. 

On the general subject of inferential argument we 
have but little to say. The removal of Satan is 
taking the fire out of the furnace, turning the water 
away from the wheel. The motive power is gone. 
The removal of the pendulum, though all else re- 
mains, will not sooner stop the ticking of your clock 
than the removal of Satan will stop the exercise of 
sin. Of the suspension of penalty and removal of 
the result of sin, as part of the divine plan, we have 
elsewhere spoken ; so we pass on. 

u And I saw thrones " — where ? in the millennium, 
of course ; Satan is in chains — " and they sat upon 
them, and judgment was given unto them." Who 
are "they?" This question cannot be answered 
from the text : we must look elsewhere. But be- 
fore we leave the text let us get a little more to 
take with us. Of a class, necessarily larger than 
the first mentioned. k< they," it is said, " and they 
[also] lived and reigned with Christ a thousand 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 349 



years." Of this latter class it is said (Rev. iii, 21), 
"To him [each of any number] that overcometh 
will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I 
also overcame, and am set down with my Father in 
his throne." (We invite your attention to this being 
the throne of Jesus in particular in contradistinction 
to that which he shared with the Father in general.; 
This indefinite number shares to a degree not de- 
scribed in an administration not located. Of the 
same class it is said (Rev. ii, 26, 27), " And he that 
overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to 
him will I give power over the nations: and he shall 
rule them with a rod of iron : as the vessels of a pot- 
ter shall they be broken to shivers : even as I re- 
ceived of my Father." Thus of the same identical 
but undefined number it is predicated that after the 
" end M Jesus will give them power over the " na- 
tions M — you may judge for yourselves whether this 
is in hell or heaven, or if it is not more likely to be on 
earth — to " rule them with a rod of iron," the sever- 
ity of which administration will break somebody or 
something M to shivers," and that it is all part of 
the divine plan. Of the first mentioned " they " we 
find by reference that it is only the twelve apostles 
who are to sit on thrones ; the collation of Matt, xix, 
28, with Luke xxii, 28-30, yielding about this : " Ye 
[apostles] being they which have continued with me 
in my trials, and followed me, in the regeneration [of 
the world] when the Son of man shall sit on the 
throne of his glory, as the Father has appointed me, 
shall receive appointment from me that ye may eat 
and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on 
twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel." 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



When we have established the fact that the 
"throne," " kingdom," "reign" of Jesus is during 
the millennium the argument is complete — not a 
difficult task, surely ; " they lived and reigned with 
Christ a thousand years." So it stands thus in 
brief: The nations of the earth being subdued at 
Armageddon, the devil immediately thereafter im- 
prisoned, the curse temporarily lifted from the 
earth, the penalty of sin and all its temporal results 
being suspended, Christ takes the throne, with the 
twelve apostles, the duodecimfid vicegerency, while 
all the hosts of the redeemed, especially the martyrs 
of the apocalyptic period now resurrected, assist in 
the administration, the iron part of which implies no 
punishment, but only the prevention or suppression 
of all crime, that the paradisaical experiment may 
be fairly tried and the equity of God's administra- 
tion of the moral and physical world fully vindicated 
in the last judgment. 

As the fifth and sixth verses constitute part of 
our text in the essay on "the resurrection," we will 
pass over them here and resume at the seventh 
verse. The thousand years are now past, one beast 
and the " image of the beast " remain in the " lake 
of fire," but Satan, according to promise, is " loosed 
out of his prison," and proceeds immediately to 
demonstrate two facts : first, that he has not changed 
his character; secondly, that the nations of the earth 
have not changed theirs ; so he goes among them 
closing his career as a deceiver with the very words 
with which he begun, "Yea, hath God said " — " the 
soul that sinneth it shall die " — " ye shall not surely 
die, but be as gods." They are as readily deceived, 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



351 



now the millennial truce is declared off, as were our 
first parents, and they " gather together to battle, 
the number of whom is as the sand of the sea." 

This is rapid history. There is more of this than 
of the Punic wars, yet it is told in a few words : 
" They went up on the breadth of the earth, and 
compassed the camp of the saints about, and the 
beloved city." The inference seems to be that the 
camp is not in this case identical with the city; it 
may be adjacent to it, the court and temple within 
the city and the camp round about it. We will 
speak in the present and past tense, as in the text. 
The circumstances are these : the seat of Christ's 
government has been Jerusalem for a thousand 
years; the Jews are all Christians; the disaffected 
have retired from the immediate seat of govern- 
ment ; the rigid law of millennial suppression of sin 
must have been relaxed since the devil was turned 
loose, and the rebellion, like most rebellions, must 
become provincial as the opposing elements sep- 
arate themselves and rally to their different stand- 
ards. We do not desire to say much about Go£ 
and Magog, if it were only for modesty's sake, 
for we hold that where men know but little they 
should say but little, and their hearers or readers 
will have the more confidence in them when they 
claim to know whereof they affirm. This, however, 
we will venture to suggest : this cannot be a struggle 
of races, for from a race point of view the Jew will 
be Japhethized before he comes to play his part in 
the world's latest proprietorship. Ham, outside of 
Canaan, is gone now, and Shem, save in the family 
of Abraham, will be gone then. But while the Jew 



352 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



is Japhethized naturally that he ma}' come under 
the benediction of prophecy, spiritually the Japheth- 
ite is Judaized that he may be an inheritor with 
the Israel of God. So there remains but one family 
of men between different branches of which possibly 
—between different moral conditions of which cer- 
tainly — the issue is to be made. Whether, there 
fore, Gog and Magog be the Muscovite, or what not, 
one thing is certain, they are that proportion of the 
great Japhetic family reserved to fail in that last 
experiment as the Greek and Roman failed in theirs. 
There is a disposition among the unreflecting to 
scout the idea of Satan having vested rights. If he 
has none why is he set at liberty at all, why per- 
mitted again to exercise his subtlety in deceiving 
willing men and leading them to their ruin? It is 
reasonable to suppose that the darkest hour of sin's 
dark night will be past before the dawn of God's 
sabbatic and eternal day. Why was Satan ever 
permitted to have an 44 hour " and a " power of 
darkness?" and why is he permitted to have this 
and shake the earth-established throne of God ? 

But, to return to the existing condition of things. 
Gravitation and affinity are at least two " natural 
laws in the spiritual world ; " Jesus said so, " Where- 
soever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered 
together." Under these two laws the diverse 
moral elements of the human world rapidly separate, 
the good drawing, according to the double principle 
we have given, to the one only good in God and 
Christ ; the bad sifting and sinking to the mercurial 
depths of sin in Satan. Thus the camp becomes a 
gathering together of all God's hosts, among whom 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED, 353 



there are but a small proportion of natural men, by 
far the larger part having been glorified in the two, 
or more, resurrections. 

Here we would pause a moment to consider this 
exceptional class, the living righteous in the day 
of judgment. Are these the "quick " whom Christ 
shall judge ? u In Adam all die/' and the translated 
are the only exceptions to this rule of which we 
have any knowledge. " We shall not all sleep ; " 
what then is the difference between " sleep " and 
" death? " Sleep is clearly used to convey the idea 
of a suspended condition — ponder carefully the case 
of Lazarus — John xi, 11-15, where it is said of 
Martha's brother both " Our friend Lazarus sleep- 
eth," and plainly, " Lazarus is dead." Was not 
his death called sleep because He who was the life 
of the dead was going to " awake him out of sleep ? " 
and did not the disciple speak of those who died in 
Christ as sleeping because they believed that Christ 
would " awake [them] out of sleep " at his coming and 
bring them with him? The wicked are not said to 
sleep. We have no other definition of death than the 
cessation of the relations of life. The apostle says, 
kl Behold, I show you a mystery ; we shall not all sleep 
[enter into the suspended condition], but we shall all 
be changed ; " and in the change there will be the 
cessation of the relation of (animal) life ; their rela- 
tion, therefore, to the judgment is the same as that 
of all others who have died in Christ ; and with this 
we return to our subject. 

The thing we desired to bring to the reader's notice 
was that they — the two parties or armies — were 
geographically divided, hence the propriety of say- 
23 



354 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



ing " they [the allied hosts of sin] went upon the 
breadth of the earth," and surrounded the camp 
and city of the saints. That their numbers were 
very great is impressively declared ; that their sin 
had culminated is to be inferred, as well as the cir- 
cumstances and means of their destruction, about 
all of which we have something to say. 

First, as to the culmination of their sin. The 
end of the world's probation, the end of God's 
patience, the filling of the measure of their sin, the 
appointed time, had simultaneously arrived. This 
puts an end to the idea (we had almost said silly 
idea) that the world will sometime be converted. 
It may be unkind to call it silly, but why will men 
persist in conclusions not predicted in the word of 
God ? Now, the circumstances of the case : there 
seems to have been no war. This does not seem to 
be a case of investiture and attack, of sally and 
reprisal. There is no offer of amnesty, no proffer 
of pardon, no exhortation to repentance, no dis- 
criminating bolt of warning; but as one drops the 
web of the caterpillar, or the insect-covered leaf of 
the vine into the fire, so does this descending and 
deluging fire instantly cleanse the world of its guilty 
inhabitants. Now, the means : we desire you to 
collate the text, " And fire came down from God 
out of heaven, and devoured them," with third 
chapter of 2 Peter, " The day of God wherein 
the heavens, being on fire, shall be dissolved, and 
the elements shall melt with fervent heat," " And 
the earth also and the works that are therein shall 
be burned up," " Nevertheless we look for new 
heavens and a new earth ; " and first verse of the 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



355 



twenty-first chapter, " I saw a new heaven and a 
new earth ; for the first heaven and the first earth 
were passed away ; " and the eleventh verse of the 
present chapter, " From whose face the earth and 
the heaven fled away ; and there was found no place 
for them ; " and fifth verse of the ensuing chapter, 
" Behold, I make all things new." Tell us if this 
is not one process by which the material earth, with 
all the unworthy, sin-affected things in it, shall be 
consumed ; and may not this crucible fire first burn 
the wicked inhabitants to death, and when its "fer- 
vent heat "shall have devoured granite and marble, 
crystal, carbon, diamond, and quartz may it not 
also devour the bodies of the wicked who have 
been judged worthy of " everlasting destruction 
from the presence of the Lord?" To put it plainly, 
we have no doubt that it is one extended process; 
the wicked are consumed, resurrected, and brought 
to judgment ; the thrones are set amid the terrors of 
the consuming earth, which itself shall flee away 
amid the last flashes of God's wrath. The bodies 
of the wicked shall then be consumed and their 
naked souls remanded to the hell from whence they 
came, " prepared originally for the devil and his 
angels," and his angels henceforward they shall be. 

But because all this is briefly told let none sup- 
pose that it is quietly or hurriedly done. We have 
spoken of circumstances, and are speaking now of 
the means. When Christ reveals himself in his sin- 
avenging character fear fills the subjugated hosts 
of men, and all knees bow to him, and every re- 
morseful tongue confesses where no repentance is, 
and men fall on the rack which brings the bottom 



356 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



truth out of guilty souls, self-sentenced in the ante- 
chamber of their doom. There is no evidence, no 
reason to suppose that all this is done in haste. 
God is neither surprised nor hurried; men some- 
times have not their task perfected when the light 
goes out, but the sun will not roll in blackness from 
the midst of the spheres before the sixth day of the 
world's long laboring week shall have reached its 
natural close. Believing, as we do, that the uni- 
versal deluge was produced by changing the axis 
of the earth to its present dip, we see that it con- 
curred with the culmination of wickedness on the 
earth, the completion of the ark, the congregation 
of the selected animals, and the preparation of 
Noah and his family for their rudderless voyage. 
So w r e believe that when this world has borne her 
highest fruitage in the millennium autumnal deca- 
dence will mark, to eyes that will see it, the coming 
winter of her dissolution. Her rock-ribbed sides 
may weaken to collapse, her nearest atmosphere 
or remotest ether prepare for conflagration ; or she 
and all her sister planets, having reached the stipu- 
lated line, may rush upon the flameless sun and 
perish in the still hot embers of the solar hearth. 
However it may be, the world's last day will have 
its waning twilight, its portentous gloom, its gather- 
ing blackness, then its sudden night. 

The sequel is too briefly told in the latter clause 
(xx, 9) ; we must gather some of the particulars 
from other sources before w r e present this terrible 
denouement. Avoiding, according to our rule, any 
prophecy antedating the gospel era, we invite your 
attention to the revelation which Christ himself 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



357 



makes. From the curiously involved Scriptures 
dealing with this subject, namely, Matt, xxiv, 29-31, 
Mark xiii, 24-27, Luke xxi, 25-28, we quote freely, 
to obtain, first, extent, and then harmony. We find 
the greatest extent in Luke, unless the preliminary 
"tribulation" mentioned by Matthew and Mark be 
part of the whole. Luke says : " And upon the earth 
distress of nations, with perplexity ; the sea and 
the waves roaring; men's hearts failing them for 
fear, and for looking after those things which are 
coming on the earth : for the powers of heaven shall 
be shaken." Here are preliminary " signs/' ex- 
tended " distress," "perplexity" (the forces of 
nature being disturbed), " men's hearts failing them 
for fear," dreadful anticipation "looking [for] those 
things which are coming on the earth," and in ad- 
dition to the solar and submarine disturbances, 
"the shaking of the powers of heaven." 

Mark says, " But in those days, after that tribula- 
tion," and Matthew says, " Immediately after the 
tribulation of those days ; " and as no " tribulation " 
has been spoken of to which this can refer, we con- 
clude that "the tribulation of those days" is part 
of the picture in the Saviour's mind to which he 
refers, while of what follows he speaks declaratively, 
and further, that this is the same tribulation detailed 
by Luke. 

Matthew and Mark say that the sun and the 
moon shall be darkened and the stars shall fall, 
but Luke only says in all these shall be "signs," 
and all agree (wherever you may put it) that "the 
powers of heaven shall be shaken." Matthew, who 
is always specific, attributes this particular language 



358 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



to Christ : M Then shall appear the sign of the Son of 
man in heaven ; " no doubt it was the phraseology 
of Jesus himself, and was intended to refer to the 
question of the disciples, " What shall be the sign of 
thy coming?" In the fact that he should come in 
"clouds," "power/' "glory," they all agree, 
Matthew adding in this immediate connection, 
" Then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn " 
which is again, no doubt, verbatim. For the ad- 
ditional part of this presentation we quote Matthew : 
" And he shall send his angels with a great sound of 
a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect 
from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the 
other; " and by collation with Mark get these partic- 
ulars : The angels will be the agents (elsewhere de- 
clared) ; angelic intelligence will carry out the plans 
devised by the wisdom of the Omniscient ; there will 
be " a great sound of a trumpet," a sound that will 
be heard by the deaf, appreciated by the demented, 
and obeyed by the dead. 

u His elect M — we had as well shake hands across 
the Calvinistic chasm for the number of the elect 
will be a fixed fact then — shall be gathered from the 
uttermost parts of the earth, from " one end of 
heaven to the other." This cannot be the two ends 
of a condition ; if it means anything, therefore, be- 
yond what has already been said, it means the place 
of departed spirits, they being Christ's elect. To 
this is superadded by Luke these words : "And 
when these things begin to come to pass, then look 
up, and lift up your heads ; for your redemption 
draweth nigh ; " upon which, in this connection, we 
forbear to comment. We do not propose to make 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 359 



this exhaustive, but will now leave the gospels and 
let these quotations suffice. 

We will now take up the testimony of the apostles 
in the order in which we find it. Paul, in 2 Thess. 
i, 7-9, represents the Lord Jesus as being revealed 
from heaven in flaming fire, taking vengeance on 
them that know not God. This agrees exactly with 
what Jesus himself says, but the reader confuses 
himself by referring this to his second coming, 
twenty-five hundred years before this time, as de- 
scribed in 1 Thess. iv, 16, 17. Peter, in his second 
epistle (iii, 7), sets forth the same idea; and further 
on, that this " day of the Lord " will come as a 
" thief in the night, " but that being come the 
heavens (or firmament) shall pass away in detona- 
tion, and the elements " melt w r ith fervent heat," of 
which we have more to say anon. Jude says, 
" Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of 
his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to 
convince all ; " here, again, the reader must distin- 
guish clearly between this and his second coming. 

We now turn to Revelation itself (vi, 12-17). 
This, the reader will observe, is the last view in 
the second panorama under the sixth seal. We 
will bring to bear the information w T e have gleaned 
from other sources, and in their light see what this 
is worth to us as a picture of " the great day of 
his wrath. " " And I beheld when he had opened 
the sixth seal, and lo, there was a great earth- 
quake. 99 The earthquake which closed the first 
siege at the expiration of the one thousand two 
hundred and sixty days seems to have resulted only 
in the destruction of one tenth of the houses in the 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



Gentile suburb of Jerusalem, and to have subsided 
when " the remnant gave glory to the God of 
Israel ; " but in connection with this earthquake there 
seems to have occurred the darkening of the sun 
and stars. We must not let the wonderful poetry 
of this passage obscure its facts ; " the heavens de- 
parting as a scroll " is the exact equivalent of Pe- 
ter's idea, the dissolution of the elements by fervent 
heat, to which we invite your attention again, for 
this dissolution of the heaven and earth that are 
now reserved for fire is but the introduction of new 
heavens and a new earth. 

The order of these events is manifestly transposed, 
for universal conflagration and immediate dissolu- 
tion leave no time for reflection, flight, or conversa- 
tion. The hiding of kings and captains, of rich men 
and freedmen, of mighty men and bondmen in dens 
and caverns of the mountains had previously oc- 
curred as their fears rose higher with the increasing 
premonitions of impending doom. There was a 
time when the tremblings and mutterings beneath 
were the precursors of the general crash, a time 
when heat, falling from its disturbed center, 
swooned in the stifling atmosphere ; a time when 
blazing aerolites fell fast to earth from the disrupt- 
ing elements ; a time when the sea moaned within 
itself or rose and rushed with angry roar upon its 
circumscribing boundaries ; a time when the rising 
moon glowed between blood and flame in the sul- 
len twilight of distempered nature. And then the 
unprofitable consternation of Iscariot seizes the 
minds of men, and conscience, fiercely aroused, with 
hell so near, deals unsparingly its scorpion lash ; 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 36 1 



and as the staggering sun reels in erratic flashes 
men seek the caverns' darkest depths as they 
once sought the mountains' loftiest heights, but the 
uttermost parts of the earth hide not from God, and 
when her cavernous depths belch forth their occu- 
pants they wish that the mountains, which, shaken 
from their rocky base, lie all along the plain, could 
cover them from the eyes of Him that sitteth on 
the throne. So anxious nature veils the face of dy- 
ing day ; the weary sun falls into gloom, the maiden 
moon crimsons at the darkness of her shame, the 
wandering stars now lose alike their glory and their 
gravitation, and the light that blinded erst the eyes 
of Saul at noon, the wondrous light that no man 
can approach unto, the dwelling light of God, now 
ushers in the day of wrath, with the destroying 
brightness of Christ's coming. 



362 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



Abstract Treatise. 

1. THE JUDGMENT. 

We propose to prove from the Scripture (respect- 
ing no other authority whatever) that the judgment 
is universal, impartial, and ultimate. 

Universal. By this we mean embracing all times, 
all races, and all dispensations from the creation of 
man to the end of time. Its universality may be 
demonstrated by a simple passage of God's word, 
" It is appointed unto men once to die, but after 
this the judgment " (Heb. ix, 27). The judgment, 
then, is coextensive with death. If Adam died, then 
he is also to be judged. If there were any before the 
flood who did not die then are the)' not subject to 
the judgment ; if from Christ's time to this time 
any have not died, they are not subject to the judg- 
ment, and so to the end of time. Enoch, Elijah, 
and*probably Moses did not die, and therefore can- 
not be resurrected, and will not be judged ; so you 
see there are exceptions even to divine rules ; if, 
therefore, it can be shown of any man that he did 
not die, then he will not be judged; but with these 
exceptions judgment is universal. 

Impartial. " For there is no respect of persons 
w r ith God." By impartial we mean irrespective of 
everything, age, sex, condition, opportunity, period, 
or prerogative. Let us consider them in their in- 
verted order — prerogative. As an individual Abra- 
ham enjoyed it in the highest degree. " Abraham 
believed God, and it was counted to him for right- 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



363 



eousness 99 (which is subject to the review of the 
last day). As a nation his posterity, the Jews, 
exceeded all men in point of privilege ; they were 
God's " peculiar people." Yet what did the Baptist 
say: " Begin not to say within yourselves, we have 
Abraham to our father. . . . And now also the ax is 
laid unto the root of the trees ; therefore every tree 
which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and 
cast into the fire." God judged them in this world 
and broke them off; "because of unbelief" he will 
judge them in the last day with "eternal judgment." 

The highest prerogative we read of in parable is 
the case of those invited to the marriage feast, for 
whom the oxen and fatlings were killed, and all 
things made ready. They declined the invitation, 
were subsequently judged unworthy and interdicted, 
and one of their number, representing the diso- 
bedient and presumptuous of all ages, is excluded, 
as we all understand it, in the judgment of the last 
day. 

Period. It may modify or extenuate, but does not 
in any case abrogate, judgment. The antediluvian 
world did not antedate the judgment of God, 44 when 
once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of 
Noah." Waited for what ? Waited to see if perad- 
venture they would repent and bow themselves 
before the coming storm, and, like repentant Nine- 
veh, avert the threatened judgment. Let no one 
cavil about our considering indifferently the judg- 
ment of this life and of that which is to come. If a 
man dies in the judgment that precedes death, what 
must be his relation to the judgment that comes 
after it? 



364 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



Of the patriarchal dispensation Paul says, " Death 
reigned from Adam to Moses;" the death under 
consideration is the penalty of the law which links 
them with judgment both then and hereafter. Of 
the Levitical period Paul says, as to any distinction 
(Rom. iii, 6), " God forbid : for then how shall God 
judge the world?" And again, " as many as have 
sinned in the law shall be judged by the law." And 
as to the rest of the world's history, it is one period 
as to the judgment ; for he again says, " In the day 
when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus 
Christ according to my gospel." The equity of 
God's judgment turns thenceforward upon the 
Gospel. 

Opportunity is the thing on which the justice of 
God turns as on a pivot, and in regard to which 
there is more misapprehension of the divine charac- 
ter than any other, and the point at which there is 
more loose and general infidelity than any other. 
But opportunity, or " election," if you are pleased 
to call it by that name, never placed a man above 
or below the judgment level. Paul, " a Hebrew of 
the Hebrews," " brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, 
and taught according to the perfect manner of the 
law of the fathers," measured upon that line, for he 
said he had been, " touching the righteousness which 
is in the law, blameless ; " when the scales fell from 
his eyes at Damascus he stepped upon the gospel 
platform and attained to personal revelation made to 
him in heaven, and the Holy Ghost filled him " with 
all boldness " and " confidence" in his " desire to 
depart and be with Christ ; " and yet Paul said, " We 
shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ," 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



365 



and " every one of us shall give account of himself 
to God. ,, 

If this man, who embodied in himself the highest 
advantages of both dispensations, and is representa- 
tive as to the highest opportunities of either, stands 
thus related to the judgment, what of those who 
have lived outside the advantages of either and 
stand, therefore, lowest in the scale of moral ac- 
countability? Hear him in answer to this ques- 
tion ; he is the inspired exponent of the Gospel and 
" the apostle to the Gentiles:" " For as many as 
have sinned without law shall also perish without 
law : and as many as have sinned under law shall 
be judged by law ; for not the hearers of a law are 
just before God, but the doers of a law shall be 
justified : for when Gentiles which have no law, 
do by nature the things of the law, these, having no 
law, are a law unto themselves ; in that they show 
the work of the law written in their hearts, their 
conscience bearing witness therewith, and their 
thoughts one with another accusing or else excus- 
ing them ; in the day when God shall judge the 
secrets of men, according to my gospel, by Jesus 
Christ." 

The parable of the talents shows man's account- 
ability according to the providential coincidence of 
his opportunities with his abilities. Caspar Hanser 
may have had great hereditary ability, but his ac- 
countability to God must have been small for 
want of opportunity. John Bunyan found and 
seized the opportunity which God gave him through 
persecution, and we suppose that in the day of 
judgment God will give him " the morning star." 



366 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



We read all through the word of God of men 
elected to extraordinary opportunities, but we 
nowhere read of their being elected to the use of 
them. " Neglect not the gift that is in thee," is 
the exhortation of Paul, " the aged/' to Timothy, 
his " son in the gospel." Men, in the improvement 
of their God-given opportunities, have gone, like 
John, to the very threshold of heaven's open door. 

Condition is only such absolutely when it also 
comes in the providence of God. Had jesus listened 
to the suggestion of Satan and accepted his assist- 
ance to found a kingdom, he would have elected a 
condition for himself inimical to his high interest 
and frustrative of the plan of God and the presence 
of the Holy Ghost; but the conditions of being hun- 
gry in the wilderness, faint in the garden, and 
bruised in Herod's judgment hall were ordained of 
God. The condition of being intoxicated, resulting 
from the sin of drinking ardent spirits, is but part 
of one sin with all its cumulative consequences ; 
but if, in order to eat, a man kills his fellow-man 
under circumstances of shipwreck and starvation, his 
condition will not exempt him from judgment, but 
will go into the equities of his judgment in the degree 
in which it was providential. We admit there can be 
no transmission of wealth from sire to son consist- 
ent with absolute Christianity, but a regenerated 
youth may find himself the heir of large estates. 
The words of Jesus may never fall in full apprecia- 
tion, like murmuring waterfall or matin bell upon 
his dull ear or puffy heart, " Blessed be ye poor," 
but he will not be exempt from the liabilities of the 
last day. In his father's coal mines there may be a 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



367 



youth inured to toil, unused to light, into whose 
narrow life few elements have been infused ; labor 
and drink, smoke and wine, have filled up all the 
time, and yet, sad as his condition is, for good or 
evil he cannot escape the judgment of the last day. 

The would be vicegerent of God, unstained with 
the grosser sins of his predecessors, may slip off his 
pontifical robes and stand in shivering nakedness 
at the bar of God by the side of the galley slave 
unfreed except by Christ, who, conscience clear, still 
stands with humble boldness at the throne of the 
heavenly grace ; but neither can escape the heart- 
searching investigations of the Judge of all the earth. 

There is a theory of condition scarce worthy of 
mention here, namely, that no forgiven sins will 
come into the review of the last day because they 
have been blotted out," that the righteous will 
not be judged because they are already Christ's, 
and therefore the judgment must be confined to 
those who die in their sins. The reasoning is very 
fallacious: "What is the use of judging people that 
are already saved ? " As well ask, What is the use 
of judging people that are already damned ? 

Reasoning from points of natural expediency is 
not the right way to determine what God will do, 
especially when we have his own revelation to go to. 
When we have found out what God says about the 
judgment, when it will be, and how it will be, first 
accept the revealed fact, then speculate and philos- 
ophize if you will, only believe steadfastly. Alas, 
for those who are wise above that which is written ! 

The descriptions of the judgment found in the 
New Testament may be thus collated : li I saw a 



36S 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



great white throne," "the judgment seat of Christ," 
" and he that sat on it from whose face the earth 
and the heaven fled away, and there was found no 
place for them. And I saw the dead, small and 
great, stand before God," " And the sea gave up the 
dead which were in it, and death and [the grave] 
delivered up the dead which were in them/' "And 
the books were opened, and another book was 
opened which is the book of life, and the dead 
were judged out of those things which were written 
in the books," "that every one may receive the 
things done in this body, according to that he hath 
done, whether it be good or bad," " so then every 
one of us shall give account of himself to God." 
" every idle word that men speak, the}- shall give 
account thereof in the day of judgment, for by thy 
words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou 
shalt be condemned," " and they shall be judged 
according to their works." " Then shall he say, 
Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire, pre- 
pared for the devil and his angels, and these shall 
go away into everlasting punishment, but the right- 
eous into life eternal." 

Sex. It is said that in Christ there is neither male 
nor female, which does not mean that the qualities 
which make woman beautiful in this world will cease 
to make her beautiful in that which is to come ; far 
less does it mean that in the resurrection, where 
there is no marrying, the distinction of sex will be 
obliterated. He who regards the distinction as inci- 
dental only to an animal existence is only unfortu- 
nate in that the beast in his composition overlaps 
the man. All the highest aspirations of life, all its 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



369 



purest thoughts, all its deepest affections, are like 
the rays of the sun toward the earth ; they only take 
on light and warmth when they come into her at- 
mosphere. She is the inspiration of our sacrifice, 
the model of our patience, and the melody of our 
praise. What would we do without her in heaven? 
But as Adam and Eve walked mournfully forth 
from Eden, companions in guilt, as they may have 
walked hand in hand to where they could see the 
circling edge of the flaming sword keeping the tree 
of life, and realized that it knew no distinction, so 
man and woman walk ever equal before the law, and 
equally amenable to the judgment. Let the preacher 
of God's truth, in whose commission " there is nei- 
ther male nor female," remember this, and deliver 
his message without distinction of sex or fulsome 
use of flattering titles. 

Age presents no other problem than a class of 
conditions more largely providential than in any 
other situation in life. We will consider them in 
the order in which they come: first, childhood, by 
which we mean the period from birth to accounta- 
bility, be that when it may. Among the many va- 
garies which depravity has persuaded men to adopt 
is the denial of their own depravity, for they say 
since Christ redeemed the world men must be born 
into the w r orld in a state of redemption, and con- 
tinue salvable till they slip out of the redeeming 
hand, and through the preventing fingers in the 
volition of their riper years. This indefinite exten- 
sion of the immaculate conception theory is very 
convenient as to the condition of childhood, for the 
child is literally born into Christ. Add to this the 
2i 



370 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



once-in-grace-always-in-grace theory on which so 
large a proportion of the Protestant world went mad, 
and you have Universalism clinched at both ends. 
But let us see how the case stands in the light of 
revelation. The theological points can be developed 
by imagining a colloquy over a dying child between 
the lover of little children and he who contended 
for the body of Moses. 

Satan. This child is mine, body and soul, " for 
by one man's disobedience" " judgment came upon 
all men to condemnation," and " the world lieth in 
the [overcoming] one/' 

Jesus. True, thou father of lies, but " God so 
loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, 
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, 
but have everlasting life." 

Satan. True again. But this child has not ac- 
cepted by faith. 

Jesus. He has not accepted by faith, neither has 
he rejected of his will and by transgression ; he died 
on the atonement, and is mine in equity. 

Satan. His soul ma}* be yours, but his body is 
mine. Man died upon the condemnation, and I 
hold the power of the grave. 

Jesus. You once held the power of the grave, 
but I broke that power by invasion and conquest. 
'Tarn the resurrection and the life," and "I will raise 
him up at the last day." 

In case our readers want to get this interesting 
subject clearly cut and accurately adjusted in their 
minds we will state its points again. The child, it 
must be admitted, is a sinner in relation to the law 
— argue as ycu may you cannot change that fact — 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



3/1 



and if he lives to be damned will be damned as 
much because he was born in sin as because he died 
in sin. If he lives to be converted, he comes out of 
a natural condition, in which he was damnable, into 
a gracious condition, in which he is salvable, but if 
he dies before his accountability begins, he dies in 
that suspended condition which to him is not proba- 
tion but immaturity. Speaking after the manner of 
men, God is not supposed to know what he will do 
if he lives ; his condition therefore before the law, 
in Christ, is purely a suspended one. Now the other 
side. Christ has provided a conditional atonement ; 
it awaits man's acceptance, being to each indi- 
vidual case as adequate as the ocean to fill a pail, 
and it is, moreover, backed at all times by the love 
which prompted it. The child has not rejected, 
neither can he accept ; it cannot be said he will not 
accept if he lives ; equity does not admit of it ; he has 
the benefit of the doubt. Jesus has paid the full price 
of his ransom, and has vested rights as a purchaser. 
The question is, Can God be just, and the justifier 
of this child ? If he can he will. The angels watch 
with interest; the atonement is spread broadly under- 
neath him, and if he dies he falls upon it and is saved. 

We have now reached our last division — Ultimate. 
By ultimate we mean not only that the judgment 
will not take place till after all the events have 
transpired that enter into its equities, but we further 
mean, by its coming after all things, that it will come 
immediately after, that all other things will close 
with reference to it, that it will be local, limited, 
simultaneous, concrete, one grand assize, one day of 
general judgment. 



3/2 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



The popular idea that a man's judgment cannot 
be complete till the last ripple of his influence has 
died away upon the outer rim of time is true as, 
thank God, most popular theology is in this age, 
but too trite for anything more than passing refer- 
ence here. 

We pause here to consider an idea far from popu- 
lar, but which, with deference to the opinions of 
some men, wise and thoughtful, we refer to, the 
theory of a national judgment, with reference to the 
Millennium, supposed to be that recorded in Matt, 
xxv, 31-46. The believers in this theory are first 
misled by compressing things too much. They as- 
sume that the coming of Christ in glory, with the 
holy angels there referred to, must be his second 
coming, which is a mistake to begin with, and that 
he must then hurriedly divide and judge the nations 
preparatory to the millennium, which is immediately 
to begin (another mistake), the subject of that judg- 
ment to be the national permitting or excluding of 
the Gospel. It is pretty and, with their limited 
views, plausible, but refuted on its face. For while 
nations may be, and are, excluded by God from 
many things for their shortcomings, and punished 
for their national transgressions, yet they could not, 
in any justice, be remanded en masse into ever- 
lasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 
Neither would the election of a nation to national 
privileges in the millennium be the same as going 
away into life eternal. 

We now return to our argument, and under the 
head of " Ultimate 99 desire to prove that it is &day, 
and a time, and a place. First, as to the day, see 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



373 



Acts xvii, 31 : " He hath appointed a day in 
which he will judge the world in righteousness,'* 
and again in Rom. ii, 16: u In the day when God 
shall judge the secrets of men, according to my 
gospel." Secondly, as to time, turn to Rev. xx, 
1 1— 1 5 ; mark its relative position in the text. The 
ninth verse of the same chapter gives us the last 
historical event belonging purely to this w r orld. 
This puts the time just where Jesus does, Matt, 
xiii, 49, when the angels shall come forth, and 
sever the wicked from among the just, at the end 
of the world. Thirdly , place : we return to Matt, 
xxv, 31, " Then he shall sit upon the throne of his 
glory, and before him shall be gathered all nations." 
If w T e compare this with Rev. xx, 1 1 — 1 3, " And I 
saw a great white throne, and I saw T the dead, small 
and great, stand before God, and the sea gave up 
the dead which were in it ; and death and the grave 
delivered up the dead that were in them ; and they 
were judged," can there be any doubt that these 
are two descriptions of one thing, and that thing 
the judgment of the last day? Then the throne is 
a local place, and locates the judgment just as the 
judges' stand locates the court; but this locality is 
not on earth, nor in heaven, for they are represented 
as giving way to make room ; it is therefore in space, 
immeasurable space, where a thousand other worlds 
could come and stand. And so we close our pre- 
scribed argument, but desire to add a few more 
words before we finish our essay. 

Who is the Judge ? How is the court conducted ? 
Why is it held ? These are the three questions we 
desire finally to consider. First question: Who 



374 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



is the Judge ? See Acts xvii, 31 : " He will judge 
the world in righteousness by that man whom he 
hath ordained ; whereof he hath given assurance 
unto all men, in that he hath raised him from 
the dead." This gives us three points, namely, 
that the judgment, like all divine ordinances, is 
primarily and comprehensively of the absolute 
triune sovereignty of God, be the personality w r hat 
it may. That the judgment is to be administered 
(of original ordination) by the second person of the 
Trinity, and further that it will be administered by 
him in his latest personality, not as the Logos, but 
the man Christ Jesus. We pass this feature, having 
little disposition to argue anything that is plainly 
recorded in the word of God, and clinch the general 
propositions, about which there is little controversy, 
with Rom. xiv, 10, " The judgment seat of Christ." 

Secondly, How is the court conducted? All its 
features and particulars are derivable from the 
Scriptures, and may be thus set forth in their ap- 
propriate order. Of course all things converge to that 
point, and it would seem that as soon as the last of 
the wicked are destroyed preparations are immedi- 
ately begun for the final judgment. Daniel says, 
" The judgment was set ; " John says, " I saw a great 
white throne." Meanwhile the potential voice of 
Jesus shall call the wicked he has reserved " unto 
the day of judgment to be punished " from their 
graves; " all that are in the graves shall hear his 
voice and shall come forth," and "the Son of man 
shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out 
of his kingdom all them which do iniquity," unto 
" the resurrection of damnation 99 (John v, 29), " to 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 375 



shame and everlasting contempt " (Dan. xii, 2). 
" And the sea shall give up the dead which were in 
it ; and death and hell deliver up the dead which 
were in them," "and before him shall be gathered 
all nations." 

" Then shall the Son of man sit on the throne of 
his glory " and I saw a great white throne, and 
him that sat upon it," " that all men should honor 
the Son even as they honor the Father ; " " for the 
Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all 
judgment unto the Son," and " every knee shall 
bow, and every tongue confess." 

And the devils come into judgment: "And the 
angels which kept not their first estate, but left 
their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting 
chains under darkness unto the judgment of the 
great day," which will not, we suppose, take them by 
surprise, for they said to Jesus while in the flesh, 
" Art thou come to torment us before the time?" It 
is a significant expression, full of meaning, " ever- 
lasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels," 
albeit they seem to have tasted fire in anticipation 
of their eternal conditions, as sinners also do ; for 
Peter says, " God cast them down to hell [when] he 
delivered them into chains of darkness, to be re- 
served unto judgment." Nevertheless the condition 
of the arch fiend must be greatly changed after the 
judgment ; " And the devil that deceived them was 
cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the 
beast and false prophet are, and shall be tormented 
day and night forever and ever." 

And the righteous must come and stand upon 
the judgment level, " And he shall send his angels 



376 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall 
gather his elect from the four winds [from the utter- 
most part of the earth], from one end of heaven to 
the other " (Matt, xxiv, 31), " that every one may 
receive the things done in the body according to 
that he hath done [although] it be good," and the 
righteous shall go away into life eternal. 

But though they stand on the same level with the 
wicked, for the sake of equity, yet they do not stand 
with them but over against them, " The angels shall 
come forth, and sever the wicked from among the 
just." " When the Son of man shall come in his 
glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall 
he sit upon the throne of his glory: and before him 
shall be gathered all nations : and he shall separate 
them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his 
sheep from the goats [by the angels] : and he shall 
set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on 
the left " (Matt, xxv, 31-33). 

Let no one imagine that this is an appellate 
court, or that there can be any new trial or reversion 
of past judgment. There is no intimation of such 
a thing in the word of God ; there is no possibility 
of such a thing in the administration of God. Nev- 
ertheless, any modest demurrer on the part of the 
righteous will be heard from that side, or protest, 
if there be any, from the other. Those found in the 
parable of the virgins and that of the talents must 
be ruled out, as they refer to the coming of the 
Lord, and are the figurative description of condi- 
tions, and not the literal narration of facts, which is 
also true, no doubt, of the " knocker " in Luke 
xiii, 24-30, and of the " speechless " man in Matt. 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 377 



xxii, 1 1— 1 3. We incline strongly to the opinion 
that men will be self-condemned and speechless, 
but we must look elsewhere for the evidence. 
The picture of the judgment begins with the thirty- 
first verse, as quoted above (Matt, xxv, 31-46), and 
against the literal acceptance of it nothing can be 
said. 

" The books [are] opened." 

Daniel says, " The books were opened," in his 
vision of the judgment (Dan. vii, 10). John, in the 
revelation made to him, saw that " the books were 
opened. " These are the general records. In the 
days of hieroglyphics they were compared to records 
on stone ; in the days of papyrus and parchment 
to a roll ; in these days to a book ; to what will 
future generations compare them? Why quibble 
about these records? If our memory preserves the 
photograph of every face, the stereotype of every 
word, shall the divine mind be less qualified for its 
more extended relations? We have not the slight- 
est conception of the mechanical contrivances by 
which men will communicate with one another fifty 
years hence ; how vain, then, to talk or speculate 
about the means by which the divine mind will 
reveal itself to the universal perceptions in the 
gathering of the great day ! 

In twenty-five years the plate of the photogra- 
pher will present the tint of the complexion and 
the color of the hair, and from these pictures no 
appeal will be taken. We read of the lightning-im- 
printed picture of the murderer's uplifted arm ; 
within fifty years this also shall have entered into 
the detective agencies of men. Shall God be lim- 



378 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



ited as to the extent to which the lightning or other 
agencies will serve him ? Let it suffice ; the books, 
whatever they may be, shall be opened, what- 
ever that may mean, in plain and general terms, 
the truth in the divine mind shall be instantly 
communicated to the assembled universe. 

The "Lamb's book of life Wherein does this 
differ from the others ? The other books record 
actions, with their relative merits, but this book 
deals with relations only, and that to Jesus Christ 
in justification. No comparative merit or moral 
excellency puts any man there, only those are re- 
corded who have appropriated the merits of Jesus 
Christ by faith. In this book are no interlineations, 
no erasures, no renewals ; men are in and out of 
this book as the mercury is in and out of the tube ; 
nevertheless, Jesus is pleased to preserve the figure, 
" I will not blot out his name out of the book of 
life" (Rev. iii, 5). Leave the figure of the book and 
say, in and out of Christ, and you will understand it 
better. A man that determines to sin goes out of 
Christ in order to do so ; a man abiding in Christ 
sinneth not, for in Christ he cannot sin, and sinning, 
he cannot be in Christ. Beyond this the popu- 
lar idea is correct. The successive propositions of 
Ezekiel the eighteenth may replace each other with 
great rapidity ; if he dies in Christ that " other book " 
will show it, and the record is the indubitable evi- 
dence, as it is the sufficing groundwork of his salva- 
tion. Such is the teaching of the infallible word of 
God. 

The usual plea will be admitted of guilty or not 
guilty. No redeemed man, however, will enter the 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



379 



plea of not guilty, " For there is no difference ; for 
all have sinned, and come short of the glory of 
God," " for God hath concluded them all in unbe- 
lief ; " if, therefore, " we say that we have not sinned, 
we make him a liar, and his word is not in us ; " the 
claim of the redeemed will be, " A sinner saved by 
grace." 

We have no clear declaration that the sullen 
" Am I my brother's keeper ? " will be spoken there ; 
that "they who justify [themselves] before men" 
will justify themselves there; that haughty indo- 
lence will then say, " Lo, here thou hast that is thine." 
But we do have indubitable evidence that the atti- 
tude of this man in the days of his accountability 
will be established by testimony at the bar of 
God. While, therefore, the words, " Behold, here is 
thy pound, which I have kept laid up in a napkin," 
may be wholly figurative, the language used on the 
other side is absolutely literal as to the prefigured 
judgment, " Out of thine own mouth will I judge 
thee, thou wicked servant." Jesus said to the Phar- 
isees, " Ye say, we see, therefore, your sin remaineth." 
This was the judgment of Him to whom all judg- 
ment is committed, and upon the establishment of 
the facts in the case by such evidence as may be 
required it will be the reiterated judgment of the 
last day. 

As to personal testimony, we would be glad to 
quote from the word of God explicitly, for unless it 
be true that personal testimony is there admitted, 
the parable of the unjust steward is shorn of its 
significance; the friends made with the mammon 
of unrighteousness can only instrumentally, as wit- 



3 8o 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



nesses, " receive us into everlasting habitations." 
But there is no declaration to that effect in the word 
of God that we know of. It is true the inference is 
strong that when all hearts are opened, all records 
unfolded, all relations made manifest, it must in- 
volve charge and accusation, testimony and crimina- 
tion ; yet we abide by one rule. We draw no infer- 
ence, admit no argument, outside the record ; indeed, 
Jesus seems to speak for each injured child of his: 
" I was a stranger, and ye took me not in ; naked, 
and ye clothed me not ; sick, and in prison, and ye 
visited me not." " Inasmuch as ye did it not to 
one of the least of these, ye did it not to me/' 

PERSONAL CONFESSION. 

One important feature in the administration of 
the judgment which must not be overlooked is that 
every man must make his own confession, " every 
tongue confess " (Rom. xiv, 12); "everyone of us 
shall give account of himself to God." This passage 
establishes the proposition in its breadth ; but lest 
the old quibble should be revived, namely, that the 
good have nothing to confess, we quote more ex- 
plicitly. It is true Paul has said everyone of us, 
showing that he expected to be one of the number; 
but there are other and equally unmistakable pas- 
sages of the same import. For example, " That they 
may do it [give account] with joy and not grief " 
(Heb. xiii, 17). With the first clause of this sentence 
we deal at this time, as being related to the present 
division of our subject, namely, the personal confes- 
sion of the righteous. The man who gives account 
with joy must be a righteous man. While, there- 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 38 1 



fore, the passage helps to prove the fact of universal 
personal confession, it demonstrates the fact that 
righteous men will give account of their righteous 
deeds — their motives as well as their actions. 

Of course, each demand in the parable, " Give ac- 
count of thy stewardship," in all its variations adum- 
brates this very thing of which Jesus says, 11 By thy 
words thou shalt be justified." We have thought 
much of Paul before Agrippa, " Then Paul stretched 
forth his hand the manliness and fearlessness of his 
moral courage permeate his life. His was a mind to 
grasp all the import of what Jesus says: "Watch ye, 
therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted 
worthy to escape all these things that shall come to 
pass, and to stand before the Son of man." It was 
a paltry thing with Daniel that he should stand be- 
fore earthly potentates, but it filled his soul with 
ineffable joy to think that he should u stand in [his] 
lot at the end of the days." 

But the wicked must likewise k * confess/' the glory 
of God and Christ not being so much involved in 
the narration of their guilt as in their acknowledg- 
ment of God's justice. When Paul says, " For we 
shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ," 
it is, we admit, with triumphant thought on his part 
that he will " stand perfect and complete in all the 
will of God," " not having his own righteousness, 
but that which is the righteousness of God by faith." 

Nevertheless, when he says " every one of us " he 
surely means to include with himself every member 
of the human family. And inasmuch as " every one 
[is to] receive the things done in his body, according 
to that he hath done, whether good or bad," it fol- 



3 82 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



lows that in " [giving] account of himself to God 99 
he must " give account " " according to that he hath 
done, whether it be good or bad." 

Our blessed Saviour, in describing the minuteness 
with w r hich this account is to be rendered, says, 
practically, that men shall recount their words, 
though they have been the most idle, and that, 
having given " account thereof in the day of judg- 
ment," by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by 
thy words condemned. Upon the subject of its 
minuteness and publicity we learn much from the 
Saviour's words in Luke xii, 2-10 : " There is noth- 
ing covered that shall not be revealed, neither hid 
that shall not be known;" " whatsoever ye have 
spoken in darkness shall be heard [repeated] in the 
light/' and the closeted whisper in the ear shall be 
self-proclaimed, as upon the housetop, in the con- 
demnation of the judgment. 

In Heb. xiii, 17, there are clearly two propositions 
as to giving account, namely, that it may be "with 
joy ; " that it may be " with grief ; " but if with 
grief, nevertheless " they must give account," though 
it be to their " shame and everlasting contempt." 
Peter, under the general issue, asks the question, 
" If it [the judgment] first begin at us [the house 
of God] , what shall the end be of them that obey 
not the gospel of God? M and elsewhere answers 
his own question : " They shall utterly perish." But 
upon the present point of interest he says, " Drunk- 
ards, revelers, idolaters," etc., "who shall give ac- 
count to him that is ready to judge the quick and 
the dead." This is enough ; if any man denies the 
explicit declaration of the word of God he is not 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 383 



one of those whose careful investigation we solicit. 
And now from these inspired and divine teachings 
we turn to indulge a little in human speculation. 

What is the method of confession ? Even as 
we write the pink flash of the lightning — always 
beautiful to us — attracts our attention. To our 
limited intelligence it brings but two or three reveal- 
ings. We know it is electricity, but we do not know 
what that is — between us and the spirit world ; im- 
ponderable, we could not tell if our vessel held a 
thousand cubic feet ; intangible, save as we rally from 
its shock when it is gone ; invisible, save in the flame 
of its explosion — what do we know of it? Electric- 
ity had gathered to a stream, we know not why; 
produced a flame from causes yet unknown to 
science, and burst upon our ears with detonations — 
unexplained. Had we been provided with knowl- 
edge in the premises it would instantly have told 
us many things, as your voice would tell us of your 
youth or age, your health or sickness, your joy or 
pain, your grammar or your grief. 

Reader, if you do not cavil for the only sake of 
caviling, we will ask you one question : If human 
intelligence shall continue to increase at its present 
ratio for a thousand years, remaining only human, 
and God was to touch it with his power as electric- 
ity now touches matter, what could not God reveal 
in a flash ? 

All the equities of the administration of this 
judgment are determined by comparison, " Unto 
whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much 
required." There never lived a man who could not 
have been saved by the exercise of God's power on 



3§4 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



his behalf without the coercion of his will ; but God 
has his measure and standards of grace beyond 
which he does not go. All will be judged by com- 
parison between the light afforded and the knowl- 
edge acquired, the advantages allowed and the 
improvement made, the measure of accountability 
being always " according to that a man hath, and 
not according to that he hath not." Upon this 
line the contemporaries of Jesus will be judged by 
comparison with the places and people of preced- 
ing time and more limited privilege, " Woe unto 
thee, Chorazin ! woe unto thee, Bethsaida!" "It 
shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the 
day of judgment, than for you." " And thou, Ca- 
pernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be 
brought down to hell : for if the mighty works, 
which have been done in thee, had been done in 
Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But 
I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for 
the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for 
thee." " This is an evil generation : they seek after a 
sign ; and there shall no sign be given it." Christ 
could have given them such signs as would have 
overcome their prejudices and compelled them to 
admit that he was the Son of God. " The queen 
of the south shall rise up in the judgment with the 
men of this generation, and shall condemn it : for she 
came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear 
the wisdom of Solomon ; and, behold, a greater than 
Solomon is here. The men of Nineveh shall rise 
up in the judgment with this generation, and shall con- 
demn it : for -they repented at the preaching of 
Jonas ; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here." 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



385 



Where does this end ? Read in Heb. xii, 22-24, 
what Paul says of the attainments of Christianity 
from the first, and if we are growing up into Christ, 
our living Head, in all things, and by faith are made 
partakers of the divine nature, where is the ultimate 
measure of our accountability? Do the oft-reit- 
erated words, " The first shall be last, and the last 
first," apply here? and what is the absolute signifi- 
cance of the declaration, "That which he hath shall 
be taken away from him?" Keeping these impor- 
tant questions in abeyance, we pass to the consider- 
ation of another feature in this dread tribunal. 

RELATION OF THE HOLY GHOST. 

Will not the Holy Ghost be the State's Attorney 
or Judge Advocate? For it must be remembered 
that the mediatorial relation of Jesus Christ has 
ceased ; he is neither for us nor against us. That 
the persecution must be pushed with vigor is not 
an inference but a self-evident proposition. From 
an inductive argument that the Holy Ghost is the 
active administrator we are shut out by our deter- 
mination to draw no inferences. Still, we cannot 
forget that he has been the agent of the mediative 
second person in all things ; that he has ever been 
the quickener of the conscience ; that some will be 
there from whose hearts he was withdrawn ; and 
that there is a sin against him, personally, for 
which there is no forgiveness, "neither in this 
world, neither in the world to come." Certainly, 
inasmuch as no part of the judgment can be ad- 
ministered outside of the triune divinity, no one 

can disprove the proposition that it is conducted 
25 



386 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



under the auspices of the Father, by the jurisdic- 
tion of the Son of man, to whom all judgment is 
committed, through the agency of the Holy Ghost, 
under the rule, nor take any exceptions to the 
position — if we should assume it — that in the ne- 
cessities of the case he must be alike the advocate 
of the righteous and the persecutor of the wicked. 

The Holy Ghost is related to the judgment in 
the following passages : The Christian's hope (Heb. 
vi, 19) is said to be an anchor to the soul entering 
within the veil. It is further said (Rom. v, 5) that 
it will not make us ashamed because it is originated 
in our hearts by the Holy Ghost ; which is in turn 
explained (Rom. viii, 27) by the intercommunicable 
knowledge of God and the Spirit. It is usually 
conceded that the Holy Ghost is to be the agent 
of the resurrection (Rom. viii, 11); and if this be a 
right understanding of the passage, then that which 
we would reasonably infer is confirmed by this rev- 
elation, and the domain of the resurrection is the 
domain of the Holy Ghost ; a claim which he him- 
self seems to set up, " Blessed are the dead which die 
in the Lord from henceforth ; yea, saith the Spirit, 
their works do follow them" (Rev. xiv, 13); con- 
firmatory of which position you will observe that 
in the address to the several churches of Asia, while 
everything is said in its potentiality by the Lord 
Jesus, yet in its personal particularity it is spoken 
by the Holy Ghost, and every time the exhortation 
follows, " Hear what the Spirit saith unto the 
churches/' 

If our conclusions are well drawn we have this 
answer to the question of the administration, at 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



387 



least on the divine side. It is administered in favor 
of God the Father, of whom, and through whom, 
and to whom are all things; by the Lord Jesus 
Christ, " Judge of the quick and the dead;" and 
the thrones are set, and the roll is called, and the 
court is opened, and the prosecution is conducted, 
and the righteous are sustained, and the wicked re- 
manded to punishment by the Holy Ghost, the 
divine agent in all things. And so, leaving the 
interstices to be filled by the inference and imagina- 
tion, poetry and pathos, of other men, we proceed 
to close up in a few words the groundwork of the 
judgment. 

We now reach the last question, " Why is it 
held?" In answering this question we do not stop 
to combat the innumerable quibbling objections 
raised to a universal judgment, but promptly, in as 
few words as possible, submit a summary of the 
reasons why a judgment is held, which, if scriptural 
and clear, will answer all objections. 

First, we consider the conditions which lead to 
the judgment, premising that sin is not indigenous 
to this world, but was introduced into this world by 
Satan, with whom it did originate, and in whom it 
existed anterior to the creation of this world ; that 
when man sinned, there being no qualification in 
the law and penalty for anything that appeared on 
the surface, God's truth and justice were involved 
in the immediate execution of the penalty, and, for 
aught that upon the surface of things appeared, 
God had failed in his plan and been disappointed 
in his purposes ; that when God gave his Son to 
ransom man he was jealous for the honor of his 



3 88 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



Son, and that toward one who alone could be the 
rival or enemy of the Father or the Son, Satan, the 
head of organized evil. 

On these premises we begin to build our argu- 
ment. If Satan was always "the accuser," then 
there was some reason why he always was such, 
some philosophy underlying the whole case. We 
do not desire to occupy ground here belonging 
properly to the " History of Satan," but only to 
say that we do not know what Satan was except as 
we know it in a kind of reversion of what he is. 
We do not know why God does not destroy or im- 
prison him, but we do know that his rights are 
respected by Omnipotence: such rights as that of 
" the power of the air," not exclusively (as to God) 
his power, but largely his ; as " the power of 
death," not an unlimited power — nevertheless, had 
it not been for him there would have been no 
death. When he is removed from this world a 
thousand years, then death is also removed for 
the same length of time ; and when he is cast for- 
ever into " the lake of fire/' then death is forever 
cast in with him. 

Such is the " power of the grave," that is, the hold- 
ing of our bodies in decomposition, that there should 
be no restoration of our original condition ; under 
this right he claimed the body of Moses ; the right 
was not denied, but it was shown him that the body 
of Moses was not dead. 

Jesus gave Satan the shadow of a title to his 
body in that he was "made sin for us," and then 
defeated him in that he had not sinned ; it was 
therefore " not possible that he should be holden 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



389 



of it." This power of the grave does not seem to 
have been qualified or claimed of God ; Christ offset 
it with the resurrection, and there it stands till he 
shall come again and claim the right of conquest 
and wake his sleeping dead. After the last resur- 
rection it (the grave) shall be cast into hell with 
Satan as part of his belongings. Albeit, God was 
pleased to take three of his servants to himself by 
way of translation, and doubtless in the last days 
there will be much resurrection without decompo- 
sition. Again, the right of wealth and power, 
called pomp and vainglory of this world of which 
he is " prince ; " nevertheless, there is a glory in this 
world not vain, a power not of the devil, and wealth 
which is given of God. And, finally, the right of 
challenge. This right has made him in all time 
" the accuser of our brethren, [accusing] them before 
our God day and night." How fearlessly he chal- 
lenged God as to Job's fidelity, how evidently he 
challenged him as to Jesus ! For God turned the Son 
of man over to him more completely than he had 
done Job. In the beginning of his ministry " Jesus 
was led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be 
[tried] of the devil," and in the end he said, u The 
prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in 
me," and at the very close, " But this is your hour, 
and the power of darkness/ ' 

Everything that is out of Christ is in Satan ; 
hence Paul says of Hymeneus and Alexander, 
"Whom I have delivered over to Satan that they 
may learn not to blaspheme." This right on the 
part of Satan has never been abrogated ; it does not 
cease during his thousand years of incarceration ; he 



390 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



is simply put where he cannot exercise it. It does 
not cease when he is cast into the earth (Rev. xii, 9), 
but he is excluded from the presence of God and 
does not meet God, again till he meets him at the 
judgment bar. 

Now the salvation of the world by Jesus Christ 
was a problem, we think we may say, to the divine 
mind, for in the solution it behooved Christ to suffer, 
and in the suffering there was solution, the fairness of 
which men do not understand as yet because they 
do not understand its philosophy. And it is quite 
possible, though not essential to our argument, that 
Satan does not understand it ; nevertheless, it will be 
better understood of men as time progresses, and 
perfectly by the universe in the judgment day. But 
our position is that it is a problem unsolved as yet 
by any but the divine mind, " that [God] might be 
just and the justifier of him which believeth in 
Jesus;" or, if you prefer another statement, that 
since "All have sinned and come short of the 
glory of God, " how they can be "justified freely by 
his grace through the redemption that is in Christ 
Jesus." 

The truth of God was the first thing that Satan 
attacked with his "Yea, hath God said," etc.; later 
on he attacked his equity, teaching man to say, " The 
fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's 
teeth are set on edge," and later still taught the 
rebellious to say, " I know thee that thou art a hard 
master, reaping where thou hast not sown." If he 
so successfully infected the minds of men with dis- 
trust, might not the better class of beings above the 
rank of men be shaken in their faith, and would not 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



39 1 



the worst class between Satan and bad men be 
fierce in their denunciation ? 

Where does all this place God, jealous of his 
glory, jealous of the honor of his Son ? Will not 
God vindicate both ? When and where will the 
mediatorial claims of Jesus Christ be harmonized 
with the inexorable demands of justice against the 
accusations of Satan ? The man who continued to 
employ men up to the eleventh hour said in his 
own vindication to the cavilers, " Is thine eye evil 
because I am good ?" The nobleman said in his own 
justification to the protestant, " Out of thine own 
mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant." 
God has determined for the honor of his Son "that 
at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of 
things on earth, and things under the earth." And 
for his own vindication that " the wrath of man shall 
praise him/' and heaven and earth shall acquiesce 
in his own declaration, " I am the Lord, I change 
not," "I am that I am;" that the universe shall 
say, " God is not a man, that he should lie ; 
neither the Son of man, that he should repent : 
hath he said, and shall he not do it ; or hath he 
spoken, and shall he not make it good ?" Indeed, 
he will vindicate himself to the measure of Abra- 
ham's faith, " Shall not the Judge of all the earth 
do right ? " 

God said to Adam, " In the day that thou eatest 
thereof thou shalt surely die," but the " dresser of 
the vineyard," in the parable of the barren fig tree, 
said, " Lord, let it alone this year also till I dig 
about it, and if it bear fruit, well ; and if not then 
after that thou shalt cut it down." When and 



39 2 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



where will God reconcile the truth of one with the 
forbearance of the other ? 

God said, " I the Lord thy God am a jealous 
God, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the 
children to the third and fourth generation of them 
that hate me." God has also said, kk The son shall 
not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the 
father bear the iniquity of the son ; the righteous- 
ness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the 
wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him." 
Where and when will these seemingly diverse decla- 
rations be harmonized? The infallible word says, 
" The Lord thy God is a consuming fire, even a 
jealous God." It also says, "The Lord thy God is 
a merciful God, he will not forsake thee ; " " A God 
ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to 
anger and of great kindness, and forsakest [us] 
not." When will both alike be proven to a believ- 
ing or caviling universe? 

The primal law stands unrepealed upon God's 
statute book, " The soul that sinneth it shall die." 
God has said in his absolutism, " I will have mercy 
on whom I will have mercy and yet the question 
of a " God full of compassion' ' lies open broadly 
before us. " Have I any pleasure at all that the 
wicked should die, saith the Lord God ; and not 
that he should return from his ways and live?" 
When will these seeming complications of God's 
unalterable law and God's unchangeable will be 
reconciled with that chance for all which our inner 
consciousness demands, and on which the devil 
plants his lever in the skepticism of our hearts? 

We answer : When He who said, " Look unto me, 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



393 



and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth: for I am 
God, and there is none else," shall return, " the 
righteous judge," and say, " But those, mine ene- 
mies, which would not that I should reign over 
them, bring hither and slay them before me." We 
answer : " In the day of the revelation of the right- 
eous judgment of God ;" " In the day when God 
shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ;" 
when " the seed of the woman shall [finally] bruise 
the serpent's head ;" when the people of God " shall 
return and discern between the righteous and the 
wicked, between him that serveth God and him that 
serveth him not," and we shall be sure that the 
judgment of God is according to truth; when " all 
that are incensed against him shall be ashamed 
when " every knee shall bow [to God] and every 
tongue [confess]." The crowning purpose then— 
the reason why — of the day of general judgment is 
the vindication of the equity of God. 



394 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; 



OR, 



PICTURE XII. 

(Chapter xxi.) 

THIS picture deals only with the twenty-first 
chapter, which, however, ends with xxii, 5, 
Authorized Version, and out of which some inter- 
polated portion must be removed. 

The first revelation is that of a remodeled earth. 
That we put this correctly is manifest from the fact 
that while it was " new " it was our earth neverthe- 
less, changed only in that there was " no more sea :" 
and if this is sufficient to establish the identity of 
the earth, then, by strong inference, the surrounding 
atmosphere is a remodeled atmosphere, and there- 
fore a " new heaven." 

We would be understood now as following the 
unfoldings of the picture and not of the fact ; the 
remodeled earth is ready now (in the picture) for 
anything that may be introduced into it. And now 
he sees the " new Jerusalem " coming down from 
heaven in its completeness, whether with or without 
inhabitants, to be incorporated into the " new 
heavens" and the " new earth:" and in the third 
and fourth verses we have one of those explanatory, 
anticipative, comprehensive, and declaratory an- 
nouncements with which the book abounds, voiced 
by the Holy Ghost, and reading thus: "And I 
heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, 
the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



395 



with them, and they shall be his people, and God 
himself shall be with them, and be their God." 

The " tabernacle of God " here spoken of is not 
the " tabernacle of the testimony " heretofore men- 
tioned — though a volume might be written about 
the relations of the two — this is the domicile of 
God. What that implies "hath not entered into 
the heart of man to conceive, " and the glories 
that follow thereupon no human tongue can tell, 
no human hand portray. There is one thing, 
however, remarkable about it, theologically con- 
sidered, namely, this dwelling with men in kindly 
relation seems to be attributed to the Father, 
which it can be only by implication, unless our the- 
ology is w T rong. And now the final declaration of 
the fourth verse, " The former things have passed 
away," gives us a chronological point, and brings us 
to the abrupt edge of an interpolation, for the four 
following verses cannot possibly stand in their proper 
connection ; negatively, because no throne has been 
alluded to, because it is not God who calls himself 
" Alpha and Omega," and because it is not he who 
officially invites us to " take of the water of life 
positively, because a most intimate connection can 
be established elsewhere, of which more anon. 

The consecutive arrangement is obviously this, 
the new earth is first introduced into the panorama ; 
then the appearing of the " new Jerusalem," with 
accompanying declarations, and then (verse 9) his 
being carried by the angel " to a great and high 
mountain 99 (an anachronism, by the w r ay, as it 
stands) to inspect the appointments of the holy city 
" descending out of heaven, from God." The figure 



39 6 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



is so extraordinary, the symbolism so absolute, that 
it is some strain on the imagination to get hold of it. 

In the first appearing of "the holy city, new 
Jerusalem," it is said, not that the " city 99 was a 
bride, but that she was " prepared," as a bride is 
prepared by adornment for her husband. In the 
second and closer view the invitation of the angel is, 
" Come hither, I will show thee the bride ; 99 yet the 
rest of the chapter is devoted to a description of 
her new home, and not of the bride, or Church, her- 
self. From the close of this sentence to the end of 
the chapter (which is xxii, 5) there are eleven, or, 
properly, twelve reiterations of the neuter pronoun 
"it ;" in other words, it has become a city, and not a 
symbol, a place, and not a personification ; albeit, 
in the three concluding verses of the description 
(namely, xxii, 3, 4, 5) the inhabitants of this wonder- 
ful city are introduced to the notice of the reader 
as "the servants of the Lamb,'' it is declared that 
" they shall see his face, and his name shall be in 
their foreheads," and, further, that " the Lord God 
giveth them light," " and they shall reign forever 
and ever." 

This, then, is the Church, the bride of the Lamb, 
of whose relation to Christ it is averred, " Therefore 
the Church is subject unto Christ, for Christ is the 
head of the Church and the saviour of the body 
(the Church) ; for the members of his Church are 
members of his body, and of his flesh, and of his 
bones; therefore he nourisheth and cherisheth it as 
men do their own bodies. Christ loved the Church 
and gave himself for it, that he might present it to 
himself a glorious Church, not having spot or 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



397 



wrinkle, or any imperfection ; but that it should be 
holy, and without blemish. This is a great mystery, 
but true, concerning Christ and the Church " (Eph. 
v, 23-32). 

The identity between the bride and her palace we, 
as finite creatures, cannot appreciate. If we could 
go inside of this adapted revelation and see as God 
sees we would understand that the description of 
the one is the appreciation of the other. 

We have now reached the end of the twenty-first 
chapter and of the pictorial presentation, and before 
entering upon a consideration of the audible com- 
munications which follow to the conclusion of the 
book we would return, according to promise, to the 
passage manifestly transposed, namely, xxi, 5-8. We 
will venture to say that no intelligent and thoughtful 
reader ever passed from the fourth to the fifth verse 
(Authorized Version") without feeling as if he had 
reached a hole in the stairs ; nor passed from the 
eighth into the ninth verse without feeling like 
a boatman when his craft has passed a lee point, 
" touch and go," and he has once more plenty of 
sea room. 

The introduction of some one sitting on the 
throne is abrupt, to say the least of it, no throne 
having been previously mentioned ; the instruction 
to " write " untimely, and equally so the announce- 
ment of new things as already present ; nor less so 
"it is done;" while the exhortation or declara- 
tion that " he that overcometh shall inherit all 
things," and the promise to give him " the water of 
life" (not yet introduced into the picture), are pre- 
mature. The relegation of the unbelieving and 



39§ 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



abominable to fire and brimstone, " which is the 
second death," jars strangely between the declara- 
tion, " I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem/' 
and his description of it when seen. Again, the 
transpositions encountered in the twenty-second 
chapter, where at least three times, namely, in the 
seventh, twelfth, and thirteenth verses, the angel is 
represented as saying things he had no moral right 
to say, demand such restoration of the disordered 
portions as will make good sense, obvious truth, and 
consistent theology ; and this transposition must 
begin here. I am free to say consistent theology, 
for any so-called system of theology inconsistent in 
its several parts is evidently of man's device, and 
such inconsistencies as may appear in the science of 
the true God show the intrusion of man's ideas into 
God's revelation of himself, which must be as con- 
sistent in all respects as He is who gave it. 

This brings us to consider the general cast of the 
twenty-second chapter, which begins with xxii, 6, 
Authorized Version, " And he said unto me, These 
sayings are faithful and true." The all-representing 
pictures, twelve in number, have been exhibited to 
him ; ten times already he has been exhorted to 
" write," the purpose and result of which has been 
to reduce the whole into a consecutive record. 
These exhortations have come usually from the 
Holy Ghost, but now, in the end, " He that sat 
upon the throne said," "Write," and, further on, 
"Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book." 
It was an injunction implying a proposition, in the 
anticipative chronology of the events, prophetically 
true, and in the then existing date of the inspira- 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 399 



tion literally true ; it is ever to be an unsealed 
book — an open Revelation. 

He declares that he is " the beginning and the 
end," and that in the swiftly approaching close of 
time he will consign to the lake burning with fire 
and brimstone all who shall have been drawn away 
from him, from the timid to the idolatrous, from the 
unbeliever to the liar. This gives us the identity 
and office of the speaker ; it is Jesus the Judge, and 
the time, at least, antedates the judgment. But we 
are anticipating; an episode herein occurs just like 
that in xix, 10. John would have worshiped the 
commissioned angel, which he forbade, telling him 
who to worship. He told him to worship God, 
told him they were blessed who did so, that they 
should have right to the tree of life and an entrance 
through the gates into the city, and ceased to 
speak. 

He that sat upon the throne continued the com- 
munication, saying, " I Jesus have sent mine angel 
to testify unto you these things in the churches/ ' 
which generalizes it until it becomes the property 
of every Christian. He was the originator of 
David and of David's line, and in due time became 
his promised lineal offspring, and in this dawning 
of the world's development " the bright and morn- 
ing star." With the nineteenth verse Jesus ceases 
to speak, and in the twentieth and twenty-first John 
adds his brief valedictory (if indeed it be his) and 
benediction, and so the chapter ends. 

That you may be satisfied that we have rightly 
arranged and analyzed this chapter, and reproduced 
that which was its original construction, the restored 



400 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



form is subjoined, to which we would invite your 
very careful attention: 

6 And he said unto me, These sayings are faithful and i 
true : and the Lord God of the holy prophets sent his angel to 
show unto his servants the things which must shortly be done. 

8 And I John saw these things, and heard them. And 2 
when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before 
the feet of the angel which showed me these things. 

9 Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not : for I am 3 
thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of 
them which keep the sayings of this book : worship God. 

14 Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they 4 
may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through 
the gates into the city. 

15 For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremon- 5 
gers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and 
maketh a lie. 

5 And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I 6 
make all things new. And he said unto me, Write : 
for these words are true and faithful. 

6 And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha 7 
and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give 
unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water 
of life freely. 

7 He that overcometh shall inherit all things : and 8 
I will be his God, and he shall be my son. 

8 But the fearful and unbelieving, and the abomi- 9 
nable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sor- 
cerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part 
in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone : 
which is the second death. 

16 I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these 10 
things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of 
David, and the bright and morning star. 

7 Behold, I come quickly: blessed is he that keepeth 11 
the sayings of the prophecy of this book. 

10 And he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of the 12 
prophecy of this book ; for the time is at hand. 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



11 He that is unjust, let him be unjust still : and he which 13 
is filthy, let him be filthy still : and he that is righteous, let 
him be righteous still : and he that is holy let him be holy 
still. 

12 And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with 14 
me, to give every man according as his work shall be. 

13 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, 15 
the first and the last. 

17 And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him 16 
that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. 
And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. 

Possibly an interpolation. 

18 Fori testify unto every man that heareth the words of 17 
the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these 
things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written 

in this book : 

19 And if any man shall take away from the words of the 18 
book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of 
the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things 
which are written in this book. 

Most likely an uninspired addition. 

20 He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come 19 
quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. 

Possibly, but not necessarily, the benediction of 
John. 

21 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. 20 
Amen. 

It will be observed that from the sixth verse, at 
which this chapter properly begins, to that which we 
mark 5 all that could possibly have been spoken 
by the angel is included ; while the reader will 
perceive that after that not one verse, either from 
its absolute propositions or intimate relations, 
could have been spoken by anything short of 
26 



402 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



Omnipotence itself. But in the present arrange- 
ment of the Authorized Version it is as if Christ 
and the angel speak confusedly, or the angel pre- 
sumptuously. The plan of the re-arrangement is 
this, to put into the mouth of the angel, in consecu- 
tive order, all that he could possibly have said ; 
into the mouth of Jesus, in the same order, that 
which he alone was qualified to say ; and to relegate 
to the human writer that which obviously belongs 
to him. 

In regard to the twenty-second chapter we have 
this to say further : First, it cannot be right as it. 
is; it stands in a condition of confusion. There 
can be no doubt or question, therefore, as to the 
right of anyone reverently and prayerfully to 
transpose these sentences till they seem to convey 
the consistent sense of the whole. We have sought 
to do so, changing no word in it nor yet the mean- 
ing of anything in it, but only seeking to strengthen 
the text by making it consistent and consecutive. 
Secondly, we desire to say a few words about separat- 
ing and condensing the testimony of the eighteenth 
and nineteenth verses. We will begin with the last 
and proceed upward. 

A simple benediction like this, " The grace of 
the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen M 
(verse 21), might be deemed appropriate under any 
circumstances. We find close parallel in Second 
Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, and it is identi- 
cal with the close of Second Thessalonians. It also, 
if not borrowed from any of these, finds ample jus- 
tification in the two epistles of Peter, who closes a 
very general address to men personally strangers, 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



403 



with most gracious valedictory, as if to his most inti- 
mate friends. He differs from James and Jude, who 
close their general letters with dignified abstraction. 
More remarkable is the difference between this and 
the First Epistle of John, which (though it is gen- 
eral) closes with an injunction. But (not to be 
tedious) this is not an epistle ; the benediction 
does not seem more appropriate than at the end of 
the Acts or any of the gospel histories or prophetic 
books of the Old Testament. On the other hand, 
when we compare the close of John's gospel with 
the close of his Apocalypse the style is so very 
similar that we feel as if the same man must have 
written them, whether he was John or not. But, 
weighing all these things together with what fol- 
lows, the odds are greatly against authenticity ; for, 
grant that it is appropriate to use it at all, then the 
benediction of the twenty-first verse might have 
closed the book by succeeding any verse in the 
chapter. 

Now for the twentieth verse. Whoever wrote 
that verse departed from the prophetical chronology 
of the book ; there can be no doubt about that. The 
intention of the writer was to take up the chro- 
nology of the then existing times and to impress 
upon the reader's mind that Jesus was then coming 
quickly. Abstractly considered, time has proven this 
to be untrue. No reasonable man would attribute 
to John any motive or intention to deceive. What 
then remains? Shall we conclude that John, after 
being favored by the all-knowing Spirit of God with 
testimony so clear, statements so exact, could have 
remained so ignorant himself as not to distinguish 



404 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



between prophetic declarations of which he had 
just been the medium and the then existing dates? 
Could he step down from that lofty plane where he 
had witnessed this wonderful succession of events 
in prospective rehearsal and say, " Jesus is coming 
now?" The writer of this twentieth verse seems 
to attach present importance to his declaration, as 
if he had an end to serve, and therefore would make 
it emphatic. Perhaps it was the later unauthorized 
declaration of some man who thought it was true, 
thought it ought to have been there and put it 
there. 

We will now consider the eighteenth and nine- 
teenth verses. These are not proposition and con- 
verse. They are twin propositions, and while the 
removal of one would not be the death of the other 
they are intended to be inseparable. Who is their 
author? In seeking to answer this question we 
leave the context as it stands in the Authorized Ver- 
sion, for our position is that the misarrangement is 
the work of the same hand which appended the un- 
authorized addenda. They are intended, beyond 
doubt, to represent the words of the Lord Jesus as 
if spoken in connection with those of the seven- 
teenth verse; and as the modern preacher explains 
them as referring to the mourners' bench or the 
fountain of mercy, so this man would have them by 
transposition and connection with his own words 
represent the second coming of Christ — as foreign 
to their real import as the other view. Now, if 
this man could have realized that the words of the 
seventeenth verse, Authorized Version, being among 
the last spoken by the Lord Jesus in the apocalyp- 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 405 



tic revelation, were spoken under the chronology 
of the prophetic rehearsal, and that they had not, 
therefore, been practically spoken at all, and in the 
nature of things could not be spoken till the end 
of time, he would not have appended other words 
purporting to be in the same connection, and yet 
having a present application not possible to those 
preceding. 

So much for the chronology. Now as to the rea- 
sonable probability that this particular book should 
have been guarded by divine threatenings. In the 
close of Deuteronomy the observance of material 
requirements is enforced by the promise of material 
blessings and the threat of material punishments ; 
but they are laid, not on the preservation of the 
written word, but upon the observance of their 
moral precepts. So the prophets threatened, not 
upon the preservation of their written word intact, 
but upon the observance of the moral requirements 
therein contained. 

Thus in the New Testament (i Cor. xvi, 22) 
Paul says, " If any man love not the Lord Jesus 
Christ, let him be Anathema, Maranatha." But, of 
all the list, who has said, Blessed be the man that 
reads my books? or, He that meddleth, let him be 
accursed ? 

But some of our readers may say, " This is very 
well as to the negative view of this subject ; but 
positively, when and by whom do you think these 
interpolations were made?'* We answer freely, 
There were three hundred years in which, for any- 
thing we can show to the contrary, such changes 
might have been made. But, not stopping to draw 



406 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



an inference or make an argument, we are satisfied 
that this change and addition was made early, and 
under the following circumstances: The apostles 
had lived and died with the conviction of Paul 
strong upon them that though they might not live 
to see the second coming of the Son of man their 
contemporaries certainly would. This spirit per- 
vaded the young Church. They had one appeal, 
one rallying cry, " The day of the Lord is at hand." 
They knew they were " looking for," they thought 
they were " hastening unto, the coming of the day 
of God." They predicted the fast-approaching 
time when men professing godliness would say, 
"Where is the promise of his coming? for since 
the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they 
were from the beginning of the creation." The 
succeeding generation clung tenaciously to their 
views, and the Church was constantly recruiting on 
this proposition: "It won't be long. The Lord is 
coming to recognize and avenge his saints." But 
as time wore on men grew restive. Jerusalem had 
fallen ; her foundations were plowed up, and, to 
the astonishment of Jewish believers, this event 
was not accompanied by the return of Christ " to 
judge the world." Vice was creeping into the 
Church; heresy was multiplying; there was "a 
great falling away," and this "man of sin " and that 
" man of sin " glittered before their eyes ; modern 
expounders proclaim a world of nonsense on such 
predictions— should these have been wiser? Skep- 
ticism set in ; there was no understanding of the 
divine plan; there is none now. To arrest and 
check all this some overzealous but misguided 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



407 



man revised, prologued, capped off, and guarded 
with threatenings of God's wrath the wonderful 
Apocalypse of John, and so published it in what he 
deemed the interest of Christian truth — one thou- 
sand monks of later date stand convicted before the 
world of like " pious frauds." 

The w r riter knows the temper of much of the 
Christian world, and anticipates alike the lugubrious 
whisper and the menacing howl. But truth is 
mighty, and the world, thank God, is full of men 
who love the truth. They only want to find her 
that they may embrace her. They want all that is 
human eliminated from the word of God, that they 
may lie down on it ; that they may revel in it ; that 
they may build upon it. " So mote it be!" It 
was never God's plan that evil and mistake should 
come into the w r orld ; it has long been his plan that 
we should patiently strive to overcome them, The 
writer humbly says, " The grace of the Lord Jesus 
Christ be with you all. Amen ! " 



408 THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



Abstract Treatise. 

"THE TREE," "THE WATER," AND "THE BOOK." 

We do not desire to add another chapter ; there 
are twelve pictures, and we have considered them 
in twelve chapters ; let it suffice. But the three 
things above mentioned require some special com- 
ment, not so much on account of their presentation 
in the pictures as on account of what has been 
previously and elsewhere said of them. 

"THE TREE." 

The history of the "tree" is co-extensive with 
that of the human race. The " tree of life" grew 
in the original home of our first parents, "in the 
midst of the garden," accessible, it seems, but not 
appreciated; or rather, in all probability not having 
borne fruit during their stay in the garden, it not 
being, as the text intimates, a seed-bearing tree. It 
seems to have been one of the accessories of the 
original plan that they should eat of it at some 
time, and that eating of it they should "live for- 
ever." It seems, moreover, possible for them to 
have eaten of it after they had fallen, and thus to 
have perpetuated their existence in that fallen con- 
dition, which God prevented by their removal from 
Eden, or paradise, to which the tree essentially be- 
longed. And man now dies with the first process 
of decay, because he has no longer access to the 
restorer of his life. 

For the above reasons it has disappeared from the 



THE APOCALYPSE EXFLAIXED. 4O9 



current history of man, and for the same reasons it 
will reappear, according to the teachings of this reve- 
lation, when man's Eden shall be restored, and all 
men, without regard to character, will avail them- 
selves of it ; and as its essential quality is that of 
perpetuating life in the continuance of its use, 
therefore, having access to it for a thousand years, 
for a thousand years men will live. 

The second tree of life is prophetically brought to 
our notice in Rev. ii, 7, and as all the promises 
made to the seven churches apply to the millennial 
period, therefore the " paradise of God " referred to 
is the millennialized earth ; and, since there is no 
test tree there, this takes the most prominent place, 
and is preeminently "in the midst." We have 
elsewhere said of these promises that each one must 
be of universal application ; all that overcome of the 
seven churches of Asia, and equally of the seven 
millions of churches elsewhere, shall eat of the tree 
of life which is in the midst of the 14 paradise of God. " 
You will say, in common with all the living, "Yes, 
that's true, but they only of all the dead shall eat 
it, for they only of all the dead will have bodies 
in which to eat it, and it may be it is all they will 
ever need to eat. The next mention of "the tree 
of life M is nearly twelve hundred years later, when 
the esplanade of the new Jerusalem is thus de- 
scribed (Rev. xxii, I, 2): "And he showed me a 
pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceed- 
ing out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In 
the midst of the extended street, and on either side 
of the river were there rows of the tree of life, bear- 
ing twelve crops of fruit, one every month, and the 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



leaves of the tree were for the healing of the na- 
tions." Reason as you may, argue as you will, flesh- 
eating is the result of the fall, and beasts would 
never have eaten one another nor men have eaten 
beasts had not the curse fallen upon the earth. 
The fruit-bearing tree indicates the plan devised by 
infinite wisdom for the sustentation of all natural 
things. While, therefore, the fruits of the garden 
were to refresh and sustain natural life, the fruit of 
the tree of life had the quality of renewing func- 
tional energy and appropriative activity; for which 
reason, we take it, men have always dreamed of some- 
thing that could renew their youth. It evidently 
belongs to that yet-to-be-developed life which is the 
underlying substance of that life we now appear to 
have. 

We do not wish to extend the argument ; man is 
resurrected into that higher life, on which his present 
material being is suspended, and will then subsist 
on the fruit of the tree of life ; but whether he will 
eat it every day continually, or once in a thousand 
years, is purely a matter of conjecture. One thing, 
however, is revealed, and with that we close ; it is 
medicinally curative of such imperfections as are in- 
cident to that higher life, for 14 its leaves are for the 
healing of the nations." 

"WATER OF LIFE." 

It is difficult to deal with this subject under our 
rule not to introduce or comment upon any ancient 
prophecy, for according to our best understanding 
— if we are wrong we hope somebody will correct 
us — the first mention of this water is in Ezekiel, 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



forty-seventh chapter, toward the close of that re- 
markable description of a temple and temple service 
of which the popular mind has not been able to 
make anything so far, and of which the theologians 
think God or somebody else has made a mistake. 
Well, one thing all will admit, the descriptions of 
Ezekiel do not refer to the " new Jerusalem M now 
under consideration, but to a time that must by a 
great while antedate that period. 

This, then, is the " river of the water of life " 
which re-appears after a long time where there is 
" no temple ; M so we have two points easily estab- 
lished, namely, that it appears at the end of the 
world and somewhere in the middle of its history. 
Having made these points, we desire to start again 
in our investigations and see if these are not the last 
two of three manifestations. The tree of life is first 
seen in paradise, secondly in the millennium, thirdly 
in the new Jerusalem. Let us take the water of 
life in an inverted order. It is last seen in the new 
Jerusalem, previously in the millennium — is it not 
seen the first time in paradise? Mark the curious 
phraseology : " A river went out of Eden to water 
the garden ; and from thence it was parted and be- 
came into four heads." The fact that the river was 
prepared without and introduced into the garden 
to water it, and then — differing therein from all 
other streams the world has since seen — dividing 
itself into four heads of streams and going forth to 
its quadrangular points, namely (as described), south- 
west, northwest, northeast, southeast, to discharge 
for all the antediluvian world of which we have any 
knowledge the same office it had performed for the 



412 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



garden, shows us there is more in it than the casual 
reader at first perceives. This is the first presenta- 
tion of " the water of life/ ' and its existence, like 
that of the " tree of life," is co-extensive with that 
of the human race ; and these are the three mani- 
festations corresponding with those of the " tree: " 
first, in the garden of Eden, a river ; secondly, in 
the millennium, the restored paradise, a river deep- 
ening as it goes ; thirdly, in the " new earth," and 
still a river, flowing from the throne of God. 

Now as to its functions. Natural water is neces- 
sary to natural life. It was literally necessary to 
Adam and Eve (unfallen), though they had continued 
to be. They would have lived a thousand years, 
drinking nothing else and not eating of the " tree of 
life. But at the expiration of the thousand years, 
then what ? Go to heaven ? There is not the 
shadow of an intimation that such a thing was con- 
templated in the plan, neither is there any proba- 
bility to be drawn from the analogies of the case. 
How would they have gotten there? By way of 
death ? Death was the penalty of the law. With- 
out the violation of the law they would never have 
tasted death. To have gone there by way of death 
would have involved a resurrection from the dead, 
and the resurrection is but an incident in the re- 
demptory plan ; had there been no fall there would 
have been no resurrection, because there would have 
been no death. What, then, about the " water of 
life," of which these rivers were emblematic? 
Where does it come in ? Just where the tree of life 
came in. Over and above their eating the fruit 
given to them for food they were sometime to eat 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



413 



of the " tree of life," and live forever ; over and 
above the drinking of the water which quenched 
their natural thirst they were in due time to drink 
of the " water of life," and thirst nevermore. In 
other words, when in due process of time they were 
raised to a higher grade of being they were to eat 
the fruit of the immortal tree and drink the living 
waters from before the throne of God. But, lest we 
should make any mistake, let us carry our inquiries 
to the Lord Jesus. He says, " But whosoever 
drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall 
never thirst ; but the water that I shall give him 
shall be in him a well of water springing up into ever- 
lasting life " (John iv, 14). Now let us analyze : the 
fruits of our being in Jesus are love, joy, peace ; 
these we would never have forfeited but for the fall. 
Drinking the water that Christ gives us never 
quenched our natural thirst. How could it ? The 
natural thirst has its seat in the body; the "water 
of life " is the refreshment of the soul. But it 
keeps springing up and springing up ; we are dying, 
but it is springing up ; dead, but it is " springing 
up into everlasting life/ ' It is like its antetype in 
Eden ; it comes from another source, but it is in 
us a " well of water springing up ; " like the river 
Ezekiel saw, it deepens as it goes till it enters " into 
everlasting life." Such, then, is its function, to re- 
fresh and sustain, as water does our natural bodies, 
the re-embodied soul, the spiritual nature which we 
shall secure in Christ. 

The great Confederate hero when he was dying 
said, " Let us pass over the river and rest under 
the shade of the trees." Possibly it was his dream, 



4H 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



not between sleeping and waking, but between liv- 
ing and dying — the river which he saw, one of his 
own Virginia streams, the grateful shade just sucli 
as had invited his weary, war-worn frame in health 
and strength ; or it may have been the dawning 
vision of that better life to come, for assuredly 
" beyond the river " we shall rest under these trees, 
eat that fruit, and drink this water which is to be 
the life of our immortal bodies in our eternal home. 

"THE BOOK." 

Our idea of a book is that it is a certain amount 
of poetry, history, prophecy, biography, or what 
not, written or printed for dissemination or preser- 
vation. The minutes of a meeting, the record of a 
court, the journal of a merchant, are but so much 
history of their transactions put in books for future 
reference. Job said, " O that my words were now 
written ! O that they were printed in a book ! " 
They were. " O that they were graven with a grav- 
er's tool upon the rock ! " They had a more imperish- 
able record. Had it been graven on the rock it 
would have been a record ; being printed in the folio 
it is a record still. All books are not records, all 
records are not books, yet book and record are 
largely synonymous, and the word rendered "book" 
seven times in the twenty-second chapter of Reve- 
lation should be rendered, to develop its strongest 
and clearest meaning, record of prophecy ; and the 
single reference to another book (nineteenth verse, 
second clause) is understood to be the record of the 
redeemed. But that quality of a book which we 
are after just now is completeness. The Book of 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



415 



the Generation of Jesus Christ is a complete his- 
tory of his origin, life, character, work, and death. 
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is a 
complete history — so far as the author could make 
it — of Rome from the commencement of her decline 
to the end of her empire. Man's books bear the 
relation to God's books that the finite always bear 
to the infinite ; the Decline and Fall was com- 
piled from facts or fancies, variously recorded and 
carefully aggregated. But the Book of Genesis is a 
record of history past and lost, restored by inspira- 
tion ; and the Book of Daniel is a record of the — 
to us unknown — future by inspiration ; and the 
point we would make is, they are simply the first 
and last chapters of God's comprehensive book. 
We call the Bible comprehensive because it begins, 
whether in Genesis or the epistles of Paul, with pre- 
mundane history which man's unaided imagination 
could never have reached, and extends, whether in 
the record of our Saviour's words, of the inspired 
teachings of Paul, or the Revelation of St. John, to 
things to which man could never have attained 
without divine aid, and which God himself could 
not have revealed had they not been preordained 
and unalterable facts, of which the history could be 
written beforehand. 

A book has its first existence in the brain of the 
author ; this which you are reading was complete 
in our mind long before, by transcription, it reached 
your eyes, and would have been equally complete 
had it never been published. We have said this 
much only that we might call your attention to 
such a book appertaining to and proceeding from 



416 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



the divine mind. This book you will find symbol- 
ically described in the fifth chapter of Revelation, 
"written within and without," indicative of its full- 
ness and sealed with seven seals to indicate its 
inscrutability. Is it written of Jesus Christ in the 
volume of any other book, " Lo ! I come to do thy 
will ? " In any other book is there a remembrance 
of " those that feared the Lord and spake often one 
with another ?" In any other book were "all my 
members written which in continuance were fash- 
ioned when as yet there was none of them?" Are 
the books out of which the dead are to be judged 
to be printed and paged and indexed by some 
heavenly artificer? All these things point to a 
plan which was devised, formulated, and fixed be- 
fore any revelation was made ; the revelations of 
which, whether in Genesis, or Samuel, or Daniel, or 
Joel, or Malachi, or the gospels, or the Apocalypse, 
are but so many pages of that entire book, so many 
appropriate portions duly made known. Moses 
wrote of " the beginning," yet Paul goes much 
further back in his revealings than it had pleased 
God Moses should go, and gives us history that 
antedated perhaps by millions of years the material 
beginnings of Genesis. God favored men with much 
of prophecy that was duly fulfilled as the ages 
rolled by, but very much more that in these middle 
ages challenges the faith or develops the infidelity 
of men now living, as the former did that of men 
then living, simply because it is as yet unfulfilled. 
Millennial prophecies which men sought to appro- 
priate two thousand years ago we now see, through 
an intelligent appreciation of the Apocalypse, can- 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 417 

not be fulfilled for two thousand years to come ; 
and, strangely as these several parts seem to overlap 
and interlace, they form a perfectly harmonious 
whole of ceaseless progressiveness, bringing to each 
age of men all that they need or all that they are 
willing to receive. 

This, then, is the book whose complete sealing 
could only be overcome by Chrises complete re- 
vealing ; and a due appreciation of the fact leads us 
to this proposition : The Apocalypse is the book 
of books, for therein is the great sealed book of God 
more fully set forth ; and while an age is in a flash, 
an epoch in a picture, yet it is consistent, consecu- 
tive, and comprehensive, and all other Scriptures 
weave themselves upon this warp into the perfect 
tapestry of God's infinite wisdom. 

And now, in conclusion, let us explain the two 
uses of the word " book " in the beginning and end 
of the Apocalypse, which have so disturbed the 
minds of some of our friends, for which cause, only, 
this incorporated essay has been written. No one 
objects to the direction given to John by Jesus in 
the eleventh verse of the first chapter, " What thou 
seest, write in a book ; " but when, in the third verse, 
it seems to be advertised beforehand as "this 
prophecy," it is objected that this, with its ac- 
companying declaration, could not have been writ- 
ten by John in advance, and would not come from 
him with a good grace after the revelation had been 
made, and does not agree with anything else in 
clearly inspired Scripture. " Let not your mind be 
troubled ! " These three verses of preface do not 
even claim to be inspired and if they did, would 
27 



4i8 



THE THIRD PERIOD ; OR, 



negative their own claim. This introduction some 
well-meaning transcriber, probably in the second 
century, prefixed to his edition, and his anxious 
zeal to bolster up the waning theory of Christ's 
early return got the better of his judgment ; and 
we must not think too hardly of him for pledging 
an early fulfillment of all that John had written. 
The unwitting feet of inspired men had fallen into 
the same hole, but unfortunately for this man he 
was the first Arian who ever put himself on record, 
for he begins by saying that God gave this compen- 
dium of prophecy to Jesus Christ in order that he 
might give it to John (?). For the prefatory men- 
tion let this suffice. 

Now let us examine the twenty-second chapter 
and see what is there, and as nothing can be safely 
drawn from the confused condition of the existing 
version I must request you to follow me in the re- 
vised form which I have given you. " He that sat 
upon the throne M bade John " write " these true 
and faithful words ; mark the chronology. This is 
close to the end of time, and after declaring who he 
is and reiterating his intention to come quickly in 
answer to the invitation of the Spirit and the bride, he 
says, with reference to the former direction to write, 
" Seal not the sayings of this book M (or record of 
prophecy) — shroud it not with mystery, hide it not 
fromhumanunderstanding — "forthe time isathand." 

Now, if the chronology be changed from the eve 
of the last day to the time when John received the 
revelation, not only is confusion wrought, but false- 
hood ; for then the time was not at hand, neither 
did Jesus come quickly ; but if the reader will under- 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 419 



stand these directions to " write " and " seal not " 
are only part of the prophetic vision, and belong to 
the chronology of its fulfillment, then all is intelli- 
gible, consistent, and clear. 

We would continue the argument under these 
several heads : 

1. That it was not true, at the time of John's 
writing, that Jesus would come quickly, as we have 
seen in the light of subsequent events ; and if the 
statement was false or mistaken, then it would 
hardly be worth while to argue that it was divine. 

2. John, being in the " spirit " while receiving 
these communications, was not then writing this 
book which we now read ; neither could there be 
anything to seal in this simple record which he 
made after waking to natural life. Do we make our 
meaning clear? God will at that time say "write," 
or "seal," or " seal not;" at present he has said 
nothing. Herein the Apocalypse proper differs 
from the communication to the seven churches of 
Asia, where he says, " What thou seest, write in a 
book," and specifically, " unto the [bishop] of the 
church of Ephesus, write," etc. 

3. Jesus could not have spoken of the Apocalypse 
at that time as " this book," for as yet it had no ex- 
istence. To reduce the chronology of the eighteenth 
and nineteenth verses (Authorized Version) to the 
time of John's writing is to assume that John or 
Jesus or the angel spoke these words at the time of 
the construction of this Book of Revelation, or subse- 
quently with reference to it, none of which positions 
can be tenable or true any more than they could 
of the ninth verse. 



420 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



4. Our first parents did not violate a command- 
ment that was in 11 the book," for they had none ; 
but that which they violated, and alike their viola- 
tion of it, have since then become part of the Bible. 
Jesus was tempted by Satan to violate the spirit of 
God's requirements by a false representation of the 
then existing letter ; hence in the first instance 
Satan said, "Yea, hath God said ? M in the second, 
" It is written/' but the interest of what Jesus did 
turned on the portion of God's word yet to be re- 
corded ; and so the false interpretation, or abroga- 
tion, of " the prophecy of this book," is a thing for 
the record as it shall be in the last day. For there 
is no suspicion in the minds of any that alterations 
have been made in past time, and certainly none 
can be made now ; but they seem designed, like 
the inscription on Shakespeare's tomb, to meet 
some danger in the future. 

5. We must, in order to appreciate this subject, 
get the idea of book, as we commonly understand 
it, out of our minds — we mean the idea of so many 
pages bound in cloth or leather, yet it is very hard 
to do. Perhaps the reader might find it suggestive 
and helpful to read the passage, say from verses 10 
to 19, chapter xxii, of Revised Version, without 
saying " book," and he will learn that " this proph- 
ecy," or record, conveys the meaning just as clearly. 
And here we close our argument. 

A brief restutie may be profitable, if the reader's 
patience be not utterly exhausted. The "book" 
opened by the Lamb represents the foreordained 
purpose of God from the beginning of creation to 
the end of time, of which all other books are but 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



421 



transcripts, from Genesis to Revelation, whether 
they come as history or prophecy. (" Known unto 
God are all his works from the beginning of the 
world.") The " book " mentioned in Rev. i, 11, is 
simply a circular letter to the seven churches of 
Asia. The " little book " eaten by John (Rev. x, 
10) is just so much prophetic communication ; while 
the directions to "write" (Rev. xiv, 13; xix, 9; 
xxi, 5, Authorized Version) are each the equivalent 
of 1 Tim. i, 15, first clause; an unimpeachable in- 
dorsement of a great fact, but having no reference 
to bookmaking. 

Jesus said, "Seal not the sayings of the prophecy 
of this book. ,, All of God's plans before Christ 
came were necessarily hidden alike from angels and 
men. The things which Christ revealed in the 
prophecy given to John have been open until the 
prophetically present date at which Christ is speak- 
ing, and he says, " Seal not, now; for the time is at 
hand." This part of the book which we call Apoc- 
alypse we might well call the Gospel of the future. 
Beginning after the return of the Saviour (second 
coming), it gives us, practically, a history of the 
whole period (according to our explanation of Dan- 
iel) of 2670 years, presenting that history in a series 
of pictorial representations, or tableaux. The points 
of the history are these : That under such concert of 
action among men as can only be produced by the 
culmination of that intelligence which is now in- 
creasing in an increasing ratio, there will arise great 
powers for evil, deluding men willing to be de- 
ceived, making more corrupt men determined to 
be bad. Further, that a proportion of fifteen hun- 



422 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



dred years shall be devoted to punitive and cor- 
rective plagues of greater severity and universality 
than any since the flood. And we find the intervals 
to be shorter and the visitations to be more severe 
as the end draws nearer, and the number, exclusive 
of the final destruction, to be eleven. Further, we 
find the last of these to be Armageddon, and that 
this overcoming of wicked men and wicked spirits 
by the " hand of God " closes the punitive dispen- 
sation and opens the way for the peaceful reign of 
the " Son of man M for a period of one thousand 
years, " the millennium. " Further, that this period 
is introduced by another " resurrection of the just," 
called " the first [apocalyptic] resurrection. " And 
here, in the beginning of Christ's reign on the earth, 
occurs, in all probability, the scenes delineated in 
the seventh chapter. The one hundred and forty- 
four thousand, being Jews, are sealed for translation 
(see also chapter xiv, i), while "a great multitude 
which no man could number, of all nations, n are the 
martyred dead of the last fifteen centuries, and the 
things predicated of them appertain to the millen- 
nial reign. 

The " little season " intervening between the close 
of this second paradise and the destruction of the 
world and final judgment seems to be 150-170 years. 
See table. 

Our argument as to the close has been this: that 
the fire "from God out of heaven" destroys the 
finally impenitent and chemically renews the earth 
by combustion, during which time the judgment is 
held and the resurrected bodies of all the wicked 
are then consumed, the naked souls of these 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 423 



" filthy dreamers" to suffer thenceforward as before 
"the vengeance of eternal fire," God claiming and 
purposing to show in the judgment that "it is a 
righteous thing with him " to punish sin with "de- 
struction (exclusion) from the presence of the Lord 
Jesus Christ 99 as " everlasting 99 as " the glory of his 
power." The thirst a loving Saviour pleaded on 
the cross when he " tasted [this] death 99 for them, 
agonizing their souls without bodies (unclothed), 
to whom Jesus was " the resurrection," and to 
whom he would have been "the life." "The soul 
that sinneth, it shall die ; " " Shall drink of the wrath 
of God, which is poured without mixture into the 
cup of his indignation, and he shall be tormented 
with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy 
angels and in the presence of the Lamb ; and the 
smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and 
ever;" "And whoremongers, and sorcerers, and 
idolaters (Eph. v, 5), and all liars, shall have their 
part in the lake which burneth with fire and brim- 
stone : which is the second death." The essential im- 
mortality of the human soul admits of no cessation 
of its being ; therefore, those who are in hell to-day, 
being separated from their bodies, are in the first 
condition of death, and when after judgment (see 
essay on Judgment) their bodies are finally con- 
sumed they will again enter hell in their second 
and eternal condition ; for this, says the divine 
record, " is the second death" — truly and literally, 
a death that " never dies." 

So much for that class on whom the darker 
shades of this prophetic picture fall ; but as there is 
a resurrection of damnation, so there is a resurrec- 



424 



THE THIRD PERIOD; OR, 



tion of life. Of those who enjoy this last we de- 
sire briefly to speak and close, We have sought to 
show that the resurrection described by Paul in 
I Thess. iv, 14-18, antedates apocalyptic history, 
and the dramatis persona who come first upon the 
stage of its rehearsal include this very class. These 
are they whom Jesus brought with him at his sec- 
ond coming, and they engage with him in that pic- 
torial presentation to John in Patmos of " things 
that are to be hereafter." 

Of these re-embodied, spiritualized, glorified men 
we have for fifteen hundred years no specific record 
but that double one with which their history be- 
gins, " To meet the Lord in the air, and so ever 
be with the Lord." The millennium, however, is 
ushered in with the addition to their ranks of an- 
other and an innumerable company, the product of 
fifteen centuries. " This is the first [apocalyptic] 
resurrection ; " and of them it is affirmed, as of the 
others before them, "They shall live and reign 
with him [Christ] a thousand years." This enters 
all the good upon a common platform of graded 
relation on this earth, for an unchangeable period of 
one thousand years, and their office is clearly de- 
scribed, " Rule the nations with a rod of iron." 

After the close of the millennium we have no 
intimation as to whether the " little season" is a 
time of trial to them or not — probably not — but of 
terrible severity to the living Christians. We infer 
the possibility of immediate resurrection from the 
fact that translation of godly men among the living 
is not otherwise accounted for, while, nevertheless, 
the benediction here obtains in all its force, " From 



THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. 



henceforth, blessed are the dead that die in the 
Lord." There is no absolute embargo laid on the 
death of the ripely righteous during the millennium, 
and no probability that during several natural gen- 
erations that succeed in the " little season " death 
should be in anywise suspended. We say, there- 
fore, that no more probable method suggests itself 
than the death — in the later period a violent mar- 
tyr's death — succeeded by an immediate individual 
resurrection. Martha said of Lazarus, " I know that 
he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day." 
Nothing less than inspiration could have taught her 
of what " last day M she spoke ; for in the last day of 
this age Christ will bring Lazarus with him, and all 
the thousands of the righteous dead who that day 
shall celebrate their first triumph over the grave ; but 
there is no probability that any righteous will be 
left to rise in the resurrection of the world's "last 
day." 

On general principles the resurrection of the 
wicked will be postponed when Christ comes to 
gather his elect from among the dead, deferred again 
in the apocalyptic "resurrection of the just" (the 
rest of the dead live not again until the thousand 
years are finished) ; deferred again for the " little 
season M — 150-170 years — till at last the grave, with 
all then belonging to it, is cast into the " lake of 
fire." This indicates an unmixed resurrection of 
the wicked without one good man to dot with his 
white robe the universal blackness of the grave re- 
served for fire ; " and death and hell were cast into 
the lake." Indeed, this may be the complete sig- 
nificance of the beatitude already referred to, 



426 



THE THIRD PERIOD. 



" Blessed are the dead, which from henceforth die 
in the Lord." Spoken on the eve of the millen- 
nium, it may take effect therein, and continue till 
the end of time. 

" Then shall the righteous shine forth as the 
sun in the kingdom of their Father" — the millen- 
nial kingdom which the Father gives to the Son 
when " he puts all things under him ; " but when 
death, the last enemy, shall be destroyed, " then 
shall the Son himself be subject unto him that put 
all things under him, that God may be all in all." 
We will drink the wine " new " with him in the 
kingdom the Father gives to him. We shall shine 
as the sun in the kingdom purchased, purified, 
restored to the Father by " him who loved us 
and gave himself for us." This is what Paul calls 
" the end," beyond which there is no revelation. It 
would be as easy to prove that it was in hell as 
that it was in heaven ; there was no heaven in the 
Adamic plan. " The earth is the Lord's," and " we 
are Christ's," and " Christ is God's," and in that day 
" the meek shall inherit the earth." It is but the 
sepulcher of the dead to-day, " earth to earth, dust 
to dust, ashes to ashes," but when death shall die it 
shall become " a new earth" — for what ? That there- 
in may " dwell righteousness," when God shall 
crown Christ King, and he shall " bring life and im- 
mortality to light." Amen. 



THE END. 



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